i wish them the best of luck on behalf of my two children because it feels good luck and he does well here, they will not have to take the plane to london like 19 of the 20 of my families and my wife's family did. i am terrified about the prospects that they would have to take the same roads. i am conscious of the fact that the children of the people of germany, the children of the people of denmark, ireland, belgium, et cetera do not, when children turn to the age of 18.

for the department of education. this is live coverage on c-span

3. >> despite this year's projected budget deficit of $1.6 trillion, the administration has put forward a plan for the next decade that includes $8.7 trillion in new spending, $1.5 trillion in new taxes, and $13 trillion in new debt. proposing a budget that once again spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much is not the kind of leadership america deserves. i'm disappointed to see this lack of leadership in the administration's budget proposal for the department of education which includes a request for $48.8 billion in so-called, quote, nonpel discretionary spending. closed quote. this is a new term or phrase for washington and it attempts to conceal the true costs associated with the proposal. behind this gimmick lies an additional request for $28.6 billion in discretionary spending for the pell grant program, as well as $12.6 billion in mandatory costs, a total request of $41.2 billion for the program.

here's the bottom line. the department is asking to spend nearly $90 billion during the next fiscal year, a 31% increase in the department's budget from the time the president took office. shouldn't have to tell anyone here that this kind of spending is unsustainable and keeps pell grants on the path to bankruptcy. we have to make tough choices to ensure the important program remains available for the students who need it most. when in the future is a goal we share but it can't be won through record spending and record debt. it's time we change the status quo, not only in how we approach our fiscal future but also in the way we support our nation's education system. it's no secret our current

in this committee we learned from school officials that regulatory burden

as you know, mr. secretary, a bipartisan coalition of members believes that gainful employment regulations to the department is working on are the wrong approach to encouraging accountability and transparency in higher education. i strongly urge you, especially in light of last month's overwhelming bipartisan vote, to withdraw this job destroying proposal. the time has come to chart a different course. as we work to answer the question about the appropriate role for the federal government in education, one thing is for sure, it must be less costly and less intrusive. across the nation americans have demanded washington make tough choices to get our budget in order and put our nation back on the path to long-term prosperity. the day of reckoning is here and the time to demonstrate the leadership our country needs is now. like forward to your testimony, mr. secretary, and working with you in the days ahead.

i would like to recognize the distinguished democratic member on the committee, mr. miller, for his opening remarks. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome back, mr. secretary. this is the fourth time we've had the privilege of having you before this committee since you were named secretary of education. each time you've told us about the work the obama administration is doing to beca

while others there is no excuse for letting this continue in a country as great as ours. it's time we decide as a nation we can no longer afford to stay average. we can't afford to lose a generation of children because our best intentions don't work as well as they should have. we need to change in our federal education policy is a mystery to most people. we have to update the law of student and national needs through college and career ready standards, modernize teaching and the learning work force and recognize that teachers and leaders are professionals they are. we need to reevaluate the federal role in education. as we discussed last week we need to maintain accountability but most provide state and local districts more flexibility in

how they appropriately address those needs and achieve those outcomes. i know we can get this right. our students can't afford to wait longer and i look forward to hearing you and thank you for taking the time to brief the committee. >> i thank the gentleman. pursuant to committee rule 7 c all committee members will be permitted to submit written statements to be included in the permanent hearing wror. the hearing record will remain open for 14 days to allow statements, questions for the records and other material referenced during the hearing to be submitted in the official hearing record. before i introduce a very briefly somebody who to this committee really needs no introduction i want to make an administrative announcement, the secretary has a hard stop time at 5:00. so i would encourage my colleagues to abide by the five-minute rule as we go through, we will, of course, be affording the secretary as much time as he needs to give his testimony. and then try to keep it moving so all members have a chance to

ask the secretary questions. the honorable arne duncan the current u.s. secretary of honee current secretary of education. prior, he served as chief executive officer of the chicago public schools from june, 2001, to december, 2008, becoming the longest serving big city education superintendent in the country. congratulations to you, sir. as ceo mr. duncan was widely credited for pursuing an aggressive agenda that included opening more than a hundred new schools, expanding after school and learning programs, and closing down under performing schools. and it goes on and on but i think every member of the committee knows this. let me just say, mr. secretary, you are now recognized and welcomed again. >> thank you so much for this opportunity to come before you again and talk about president obama's education agenda. last week i spoke before the

senate budget committee and emphasized our administration's dual commitments to reduce spending and are more efficient while investing in education to secure our future. these investments spanned every grade from early learning to pell grants and they are reflected in my written statement. i expect they'll be vigorously debated and discussed in the coming months as congress works to pass the budget. i'm happy to discuss those issues here today. before i do, however, i want to speak to the policy changes we must make in order to strengthen american k-12 education. a year ago we released a 41-page blueprint for rewriting the elementary, secondary education act. most of you may be familiar with the core elements of our proposal so i'll be brief and open it up to our conversation. our goal is to create a law that is defined by three simple words -- fair, flexible, and focused. when we say fair, we mean a system of accountability based on individual student growth, one that recognizes and rewards

success and holds all of us accountable for the quality of education we provide to every single student in the nation. this is a change from the current law which simply allows every state to set an arbitrary bar for proficiency and measures only whether students are above or below that bar. we don't know how much students learn each year. we don't know what we need to do to get over that bar. we can't recognize and reward the great teachers and principals beating the odds every single day. current law also sets annual targets for proficiency and mandates that every student meet those goals by 2014. today almost 40% of america's schools are not meeting those goals and as we approach the 2014 deadline that number will rise steeply. in fact, we did an analysis which shows that next year based upon this year's results, next year the number of schools not

meeting their goals under ncob could double to 80%, even if we assume that all schools will gain as much as the top schools in their respective states. let me say it one more time. four out of five schools in america would not meet their goals under ncob by next year. this is why we have to fix the law now. no one can support inaction and maintain status quo. i do not think that all of these schools are failing by any means. they have challenges, big challenges, small challenges, and they need to meet them because every single child counts. but current law does not distinguish between them. and we have to do that. we need to distinguish that if we're going to address the real problems. the consequences under the current law are very clear. states and districts all across america will have to intervene and more and more schools each year implementing the exact same interventions regardless of those schools or those students'

individual needs. if that happens, the schools with the widest gaps and the lowest achievement won't get the help and attention they need. and that worries me deeply because the whole point of the law is to make sure that the schools and students most at risk are served. we have to be thoughtful in our approach. ncob's requirement to just aggregate student achievement data for low income students, minority students, english language learners, and students with disabilities completely changed the national conversation and we can no longer look the other way as some groups of students languish while others thrive. the law reflects our fundamental aspiration that every single child is expected to learn, to achieve, and to succeed. however, we give ncob less credit for actually helping to close achievement gaps by mandating and prescribing one size fits all solutions ncob took away the ability of local and state educators to tailor solutions to the unique needs of

their students and that is fundamentally flawed. this law is fundamentally broken and we need to fix it and we need to fix it this year. it has created dozens of ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed. we want to get out of the business of labeling schools as failures and create a new law that is fair, flexible, and focused on the schools and the students most at risk. we need a common sense law which strikes the right balance between accountability and flexibility. and the basic problem is that ncob got that backwards. instead of being tight on goals and loose on means of achieving that, the law is loose on goals but tight on the means, from a management standpoint that simply doesn't make sense. we need to flip that and states are already leading us in the right direction. first of all, many states are developing robust data systems so they can measure student growth. second, and more important, 41

states plus d.c. have voluntarily adopted college and career ready standards so the bar has been raised. states appreciate the flexibility and the support we are providing in other ways as well. at their request, last week we gave all governors a document explaining how they can shift around federal funds to better meet their local needs. we also gave them a second document showing how they can be more productive and efficient as they work to balance their budgets in these very tough economic times. we all need to be sharing good ideas and best practices to make due with -- to do more with less. but they're also begging us for more flexibility in getting their students over the bar set by ncob, which is why we need to fix the law. under our proposal, when schools and districts of states make gains, we'll reward them with resources and flexibility. but if schools boost overall proficiency while leaving one sub group behind, that simply is not good enough.

every school, every single school must ensure that every child is being served. schools must serve annual targets of improvement for all students and sub groups. and if achievement gaps are not closing each year, districts and states must intervene. we'll challenge them. not only around achievement gaps but also on their use of title one dollars and we'll further challenge them on the distribution of effective teachers and comparability in funding. finally, if schools persistently under perform we'll target them much more seriously and that gets to the third word i mentioned at the beginning, which is focused. we don't have unlimited resources. we must focus on the schools, the communities, and the students most at risk. congress has been generous with us in recent years and by providing $4 billion for school improvement grants, that money will help fix thousands of our nati nation's lowest performing schools, that we can't simply

stand idly by and watch. president obama and i visited one of these schools last friday in miami accompanied by the former florida governor jeb bush. the school has new leadership, some new staff, and new curriculum, more time for learning, and, best of all, a new climate of energy, hope, and determination that is already generating measurable progress in the classroom. i can't tell you how inspiring the visit was. both teachers and students were so thankful for the opportunity to gather to create a much better learning environment. and today across the country nearly a thousand schools are undergoing similar transformations and each year we will add more. this is tough work, controversial work, tough medicine. but when schools are not making progress, we have a moral obligation to demand dramatic change. children cannot wait for an education. they can't take a year or two off while administrators tinker around the edges. now, nothing about our proposal for reauthorization alters our historic commitment to serve

populations that need extra support or hold schools accountable for the academic success of these students. that includes low income children, students with disabilities, english language learners, rural students, and others. our commitment to help the children who need the most support is stronger than ever. as our proposed 2012 budget shows, 84% of our funding is for formula programs like title one and ida. in fact, we want to increase funding for both of these programs, but formula funding alone won't move the needle fast enough. we also need to provide some incentives to states and districts and local communities to embrace new, bold reforms. as you know, congress gave us a unique opportunity to develop a state level grant competition called race to the top. this program accounts for less than 1% of annual spending on k-12 education in america. but it has helped unleash more creativity, more change, more

collaboration, more positive and productive activity at the state and local level than any other program in history. it has done so by avoiding one size fits all man dates and providing flexible funding to give state and local leaders the opportunity to develop comprehensive solutions on their own. i want to work with you and with local leaders to design the next round of this program, a district level competition, that includes a carve out for rural school districts. rural districts are absolutely willing to compete but they need a level playing field and it's unfair to ask small districts where school administrators are often doing double and even triple duty as coaches and bus drivers to compete directly with large districts who might have full-time grant rights. i fully understand the competitive programs serve only a share of the student population. but the real measure of competitive programs like race to the top is not the direct impact they have on students but rather the indirect impact they have on the entire system. a dozen states receive funding

from us, but 41 states raise standards. and that's a game changing victory for the country and long term for our country's economy. our education system was designed more than a century ago and it has simply not changed with the times. it must change to prepare our students for the new century. we must try new approaches to teaching, new ways of using technology, and better systems of monitoring progress. the only way to get better results is by replacing what doesn't work with what does. competition can help drive innovation and take the best ideas from around the country to scale. and we must also have the will to change right here in washington. our department must continue to support and encourage innovation, not force compliance. we must continue to work together in a bipartisan way to rewrite the law. this requires real courage to move beyond our differences and to find common ground around basic principles of fairness and

flexibility. we're more than halfway through another school year. let's challenge ourselves to give states and districts and communities the support and the flexibility they need before the start of the next school year. and let's do it with everyone at the table. reform is most effective and sustainable when developed collaboratively with our teachers and their leaders. race to the top proved it. our denver conference last month was another step forward and rewriting esda can further strengthen the relationship between policy makers and practitioners in our nation's classrooms. at the end of the day the best way to make a difference in the classroom is with effective, well supported teachers. the best way to achieve that is with stronger recruiting and training programs linked to rigorous teacher and principal evaluation systems. that work is under way all across america. if we do our part by fixing the law, we can accelerate that progress. the urgency for change has never been greater. the plain fact is that america

is stagnating while the rest of the world moves ahead of us. the plain fact is that to lead in a new century we have no choice in this matter but to invest in education. no other issue is more critical to our economy, our future, and our way of life. so i look forward to working with you in the coming months to meet this challenge and to renew our commitment to our children and their future by building the education system they desperately need and deserve. thank you so much. i'm now happy to take your questions. >> thank you very much, mr. secretary. thanks again for being with us as ranking member said for the fourth time. thanks again for your willingness to work with us in a bipartisan way. and thanks for your testimony. i was pleased to see in your budget elimination of some 13 programs. that's sort of a baby step in the right direction i might say. because last week the gao

released a report that found there was widespread duplication, including around 80 federal programs focused on improving teacher quality. so even though your budget request consolidates some of this, my question is, why didn't you do more? is there something you're still exploring? or it just seems to me that one of the easiest things that we ought to be able to do, you and the administration, us here, is to eliminate much of this duplication. >> that's a great point. we have to continue to work with the administration. many of these programs are actually in our department, not in our department but in others. we need to work better together. absolutely committed to doing that. we consolidated 38 programs to 11 which is a significant step in the right direction. we eliminated about 13 programs as you said. we continue to do this hard work every single year. >> okay. i look forward to continuing to work with you. i assure you we're looking at that here and will continue to do so.

it is very important that you provide the leadership and the first step in the administration in doing that. we'll do our part. but i appreciate that you made the first step. i was always hoping for a bigger step and i hope that we'll get to one of those. i've got a question for the record. i don't expect you to answer it here now. but i am concerned that there has been some information coming to light lately, been reported much in the news, about the gainful employment rules and some short sellers and some contact with the department. i'm not going to put you on the spot here now but we will be looking for an answer for the record. we'll reach you later. one of my favorite subjects, and that's funding for individuals with disabilities, special education, you may recall that last year the department came forward with a $250 million increase that was labeled by one of my colleagues as budget dust, a view that i hardly concurred in. and this year you've asked for

$200 million, even less. and i will freely admit that this is a bipartisan problem where we say republicans and democrats that we need to do something to come closer to or to meet the federal government's, what i think, is obligation of providing 40% of that actual planning. we're at about 17% now. and so i know that, believe me, i know that fiscal times are hard but you were able to find $900 million for more for race to the top and $350 million more for the investing in innovation fund and it just seems to me that our priorities aren't right. we had an amendment on the floor during the continuing resolution to restore money, which to special-ed, which i thought was mistakenly taken out. we didn't all agree so i know that is hard but it's where my priority is and again i appeal to the administration and your budget and your setting priorities to make that a higher priority.

what are you thinking about that? >> i absolutely appreciate your passion on this. it's one i felt in chicago with unfunded liabilities there. they are $58 million for infants. we'd love to do more. you know these are very tough budget times. what i would ask you to consider is that when we have states across the country raising standards and really raising the bar, every single child benefits, particularly those children where historically standards have been dummied down and those are students with disabilities. when we're asking to have every single high school graduate be college and career ready the greatest beneficiaries are those students who historically haven't had those kinds of opportunities, students with disabilities. so both through direct and indirect funding and by changing behavior at the state and local level, i'm convinced we have a much better chance to help every single child fulfill their

potential, regardless of ability or disability. >> and i applaud your passion and your determination and worth while for us to continue the discussion. i just know and everybody in this room knows that every school would benefit by special education funding. some of these other things are controversial, not agreed to by everybody, some benefit, some don't benefit. but schools in this country are shifting money to meet the requirements of idea and increasing tensions among parents and other students and i just would again encourage the department and the administration to take a look again at those priorities and of course we'll be doing that as we go forward. >> we're also challenging folks so there are clearly significant unmet needs. we recognize that and realize that. on the flip side, we're also chal e challenging folks to think very creatively in this area. let me give you a couple

examples. many students who enter special education enter because they are learning disabled, l.d. many students get labeled that because they weren't taught how to read before third grade. and so we're pushing folks very, very hard and these often are minority boards which really push districts to embrace early literacy, to work hard with students having difficulties. if we teach them how to read to keep them out of special education. what is amazing to me mr. chairman is once a student enters special education they almost never exit. >> exactly. >> stays with them for life. we can do a much better job of preventing students from having that label early on, if there are significant needs let's do it. the other thing is really looking at transportation. we have children who are on a bus by themselves at about $35,000 a year. it would be much cheaper to buy that family three or four cars. >> right. >> than to put them on one school bus every single year. so we need to continue to increase funding but we also need to really be thoughtful and are we being efficient in the use of scarce, scarce i.d.e.a.

funds? >> i'm sure in many cases we're not but we are so far off in the funding i'm just asking that you look at that in terms of priority. i'm way past my time. i yield back. thank you. on the last point i look around california and i see what some school districts are doing, really simple dynamics, but taking children that otherwise almost out of default would end up in special education are not. some of it is a question of visual aids, glasses, what have you. some muscle coordination. the l.a. school district is showing a huge amount of promise in helping us reduce that. mr. secretary, as i said in my opening statement, and i think you confirmed it in your statement. we've really got to get to the reauthorization. when i listen to the last two panels in the two hearings that

we had in this committee, we're now seeing a level of sort of dynamic movement in states and districts be they rural or be they large urban districts across this country with the use of data that not only allows them to tell the districts and the public how the children in those districts are doing but also now to delineate how their teachers are doing, which classes need additional assistants, which individuals can use additional professional development, and really starting to make moves now on driving performance based outcomes that we really didn't have the capability, we speculated about and a lot of people said that's what they're doing and it turned out it wasn't. but now with robust data systems, we really see the level of cooperation between principals and superintendents and classroom teachers on a real time basis and being able to get

the children in need on a realtime basis as opposed to waiting for october of the next year, you know, when kids have selected classes and moved to different schools and you start all over again. and it seems to me that we have the ability to move away from this, as you said, one test on one day, to judge a whole school system on, that's really not an accurate reflector. under the terms of no child left behind you really can't reward the work of people who made remarkable improvements but won't reach it the way it's set up by the state, nothing to do with the school, to do that. so i would hope one of the things that comes out of this hearing is that we have to move. and i think we now have an ability to create a system of data that is transparent and, more importantly, understandable to parents and to students and to teachers and to the community

that really then calls into question what is our role in monitoring and sort of the lever pulling we've done over the last 30 years to really be able to back out of some of that because i think if the data is properly collected, if it's properly published, communities will stand in on our behalf. the best economic driver in the community is a good school system. the real estate association will tell you what the first question is families ask, what district is this home in? and so i think we have a chance to provide some substitution for what has been a tough federal role for a good reason. there were a lot of kids that were invisible. they're no longer invisible and they're not going to go back to being invisible. i would just hope that we could figure out how we get the train on the tracks here because i think there's very substantial improvements that could be made and really allow the dynamics

that we now see taking place in a lot of mixed districts across the country on behalf of students and their performance and their out comes. >> i couldn't agree more. i'm hopeful. i have extraordinary respect for your long-term commitment to this, great working relationship with the chairman. the senate is working very, very hard on this. i think for all the silliness we sometimes see in washington this could be the one issue we come behind and do the right thing for the children and the economy. i am very hopeful. i feel the urgency. i want to go into the new school year with a much better law with this law fixed. >> thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i have several narrow questions i'd like permission to submit to the secretary for written response rather than using up my time. >> without objection. >> and i have, first of all, in my part of the world, a lot of citizens are quite surprised to

find what a small fraction of local k-12 education budgets actually come from the federal government. it's in the middle single digits in most of the districts. >> 8% to 10% usually. >> even a little lower in some of the districts. and in our state and district as all over the country we have our share of poverty but we have joint school districts and as a result that kind of moves things toward the average and the money doesn't follow the student. so we have a lot of poor kids who aren't getting help from programs that are designed normally to help poor students. and the districts as a result have an extra burden placed on them that they don't have the resources to meet. do you have any ideas or are there things that we could do to try to better fund, direct

funding better toward the students who in fact are poverty students and who have need rather than to the districts in which they may happen to reside? >> well, i think when you have scarce resources as we do in every district around the country will tell you these are the toughest budget times in a long time, we have to make sure we're getting great bang for our buck and we're getting results so whether it's following the money down to the child, whether it's looking into how those investments are being made, we have to ask those questions. and whether it's title one dollars you're referring to, i.d.e.a. dollars the chairman is speaking about, we have to make sure that every single scarce taxpayer dollars have an impact on children. tough budget times, a time to re-evaluate your priorities. districts are doing things that aren't having an impact you have to make tough calls and stop doing those and put the scarce dollars where they make a difference. if that money is getting lost in the bureaucracy or not really helping poor students be successful academically and break cycles of poverty because

they're getting great education we have to challenge that status quo. >> my problem is that the district doesn't qualify because it may have 20% of kids who are in poverty but it's not getting funding because it doesn't have 70% or 80% or the whole district doesn't fit within a quality -- it would be much -- it would be, i think, more equitable to count the number of people who qualify as we do with the school lunch program for example or things like that and let the money go to the -- not follow the student individually necessary -- there are some problems with that. but go to the district in which they reside rather than disqualifying a district if it doesn't reach a certain threshold. >> i understand the point. >> the other complaint we have is as you could imagine with a relatively small percentage of dollars coming from the federal government, in the single digits, the stove piping or

siloing of all of these different programs really means either you can't really effectively use -- utilize many of the smaller ones or you lack any flexibility in tailoring the dollars to local needs by consolidating in a way that you could actually get something done. is there anything we can do to provide low funding districts with a little more flexibility or somehow allow people to manage the resources to actually do a better job? >> absolutely. and i encourage you to please keep pushing very hard on this. we talked about consolidating 38 programs down to 11. that means a lot less stove piping. it means much more accessible pools of fund. funds to districts. we've met with all the governors the past week. we had all the documents. it talks about existing flexibility. it isn't always used. obviously our whole goal in reauthorizing is to provide much more flexibility than what exists today. those are a number of steps we

have taken, are taking in the right direction, great conversations with governors and local students on this, and i think if we can reauthorize together we can take another very dramatic step in that direction. again, for me, the huge tradeoff in all of this is where we're raising standards. we're having a high bar. i want to hold folks accountable to that bar and give them a lot more room to get there. get out of the micro management. i think that is the tradeoff you're seeing around the country. it's the right thing for children and education and continue to push us hard to find ways to be more flexible, to be more innovative, to be less stove pipy, and if folks can spend less time dealing with us in the bureaucracy and more time teaching children to read, that would be a really good thing. we've met the enemy and it's us. we have a lot of different groups, money is set aside for this need or that and it's been impossible to resist. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, a pleasure to have you here.

currently, we measure school performance based upon student achievement on required state reading and mathematic achievements. what other indicators could be used to expand accountability and measure student growth, that we talk about growth models. could attendance be one of the factors we could measure? graduation. aside from the number of students involved in attendance and graduation, that may have a cumulative effect upon the attitude within that school. could there be other measures in which we can determine the progress of the school? >> absolutely. so i think at the end of the day graduation rates are hugely important. i think all of you know now we have about 25% dropout rate in this country. that is economically unsustainable and it's morally unacceptable. high school dropouts today have no chance, none, to get a good

paying job to support their family so we have to look at graduation rates. longer term we have to look at what happens after graduation. are folks going to two-year community colleges, four-year universities, trade technical vocational training? are they persevering? were they really ready? i keep saying we have to get higher education out of the remediation communities and many communities 30%, 40%, 50% of students who graduate from high school are taking a remedial class in college because they weren't ready. we were lying to them. looking at perseverance beyond high school is very important. attendance rates are what i call a huge, leading indicator of what's going to happen. if you want to identify high school dropouts, look at kindergarten attendance rates. and where you have students missing, you know, 90% on a test sounds good. 90% attendance means that student is missing 18 days on 180 school day year. that is a month of school they're missing. if you want to increase the outcomes you have to look at attendance rates. we want to put out there, we should ask teachers and students

how they feel about the school. do they feel supported? is there an adult they can talk to? i think those kinds of climate surveys would be a great indicator. there's been significant research that where there is a climate of trust in schools, you see innovation creativity, when there is significant distrust amongst the administration staff, students' needs aren't being met. so i think there are multiple indicators and we should be looking at them both as leading and lagging indicators to better ascertain how schools are moving. >> and again, we write that into law so the states will have that guidance and be assured that somehow we will let them measure those things and determine -- >> i think the flexibility now and i'm not sure they should be held accountable for every single one of these but schools being really smart in terms of driving student achievement are looking at discipline issues, truancy, looking at those things. we can have a discussion how it fits into it. just to give one more anecdote, the school we had friday, miami central high school, the first year of a turn-around, no test scores yet, no new graduating

classes, but in one year discipline problems have gone down 60%. that's a pretty good leading indicator that school is going in the right direction. still huge challenges, still a long way to go but when you have a 60% dropout -- 60% reduction in discipline challenges it makes you very hopeful about where that school is going. >> could we assign a certain percentage of how we would evaluate that attendance or the graduation, a certain percentage of their total score to give them some incentive to work on that? because some schools don't do a good job. >> there are huge variations in these things. i'm not sure if we should assign a percentage or not but getting schools focused on what i call these leading indicators, attendance, truancy, discipline issues, trust, collaboration, those leading indicators are hugely predictive of where schools are going and getting much better focus and again my point sharing best practices

where folks are doing creative things to reduce truancy and dropouts and keep students more engaged, we need to replicate and build upon those best practices and reward that. we don't provide any rewards now in the current law. that has to change. >> let me ask you this. can we address the fact that a sub group may keep a school from achieving ayp without neglecting our responsibilities for those students who are in this sub group? >> we can address that. to me, it's still important that we take care of every single child but if you have, sometimes, literally one or two children and one sub group who are struggling, let's get them the help they need. let's give them support they need. let's look at what is going on during the school, after school, at home, what we do to help those students be successful. but with the current law, you have to provide tutoring for the whole school. 1500 children in the school. 1498 might be doing pretty well. let's target those scarce resources on those handful of children who need the help so we can be much more thoughtful,

have just much greater common sense if we fix this law. >> i appreciate that answer very much. thanks a lot mr. secretary. >> thank you. the gentleman's time has expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome, secretary duncan. nice to see you again. i've got a -- i hope i can make my question short but you have the race to the top program and i think that came in where really the members of this committee did not really have much to do with it. it was kind of started and then presented to us. and i think that has bothered some of us. and then the competition that a lot of the states went through and two were chosen and then ten were chosen. but it seems to be, and i didn't realize that there are so many states that are also adopting a lot of those reforms, moving

ahead with them even though they were not awarded any funding for it and particularly one of them was illinois that i didn't realize how much in debt they had -- how much in depth they had gone and how they were really working with it. how is that program going to work with the k-12 reauthorization? is there going to be kind of a melding? are we going to use the practices that reforms for race to the top? >> what we're seeing again is so important. i emphasized we've heard the federal spending is 8% to 10% and for less than 1% of what we spend k-12 we have 41 states adopt college and career ready standards for the first time in this country a child in massachusetts and a child in illinois and a child in mississippi is going to be held to the same standard. that is, i can't over emphasize how important that is long term for our children and our country. we have 44 states working together in two different consortiums. the next generation of assessments.

we've had about three dozen states remove barriers to innovative schools. we had some states, i learned this coming to washington, didn't know it before. we have some states that have laws on the books that made it illegal, that prohibited the linking of student achievement and teacher effectiveness, all of those laws are gone. and so the benefits went way beyond a dozen or so states that receive money. moving forward if we're forced in to receive another round of race to the top funding we want to focus on the district level. we've seen dramatic breakthroughs. we want districts to continue in that direction. that is just one set of resources. the invested innovation funneled is all about skill and best practices. we were able to fund about 49 of those. we have 1700 applicants from around the country. this huge outpouring of creativity. we want to replicate jeffrey cannon's work in the harlem children's zone the community level promise neighborhoods initiative. so at the community level, district level, and state level we think we continue to get these kinds of transformational breakthroughs that frankly we

haven't seen for far too long in this country. >> do you think that the k-12 and the reauthorization will involve a lot of that? i know there are also concerns about national standards. you talked about coalitions of states. so that we're not going to -- you're not going to become the superintendent of public education. we're not going to become the school board absolutely not. zero interest in that. that would be a step in the wrong direction. this is all about states voluntarily working together. this is all driven by courageous governors, republican, democratic, courageous state school chief officers saying we're tired of lying to children. we're tired of dumbing down standards. and not to take one more second but this is so important to me personally because you and i come from one of those states that dummie down standards. not because it's good for children or good for education but because it's good for politicians. and i'm so thankful illinois is amongst those states that have raised standards and we're going to get out of the business of

lying to children and tell them the truth in third grade and fifth grade and eighth grade and 11th grade. are they truly college and career ready? when i ran the chicago public schools we stopped paying attention to a lot of what the state was doing because we thought it was standing in the way of where we needed to go for our children. >> thank you. just one more quick question and that's on the homeless children which i've worked a lot on. i think that the definition of homeless in the education is so important. having the same standards so we are seeing so many young, you know, from birth to 6 -- so many of the children are in these homeless shelters and are not really getting the education that they need. >> you've been a passionate advocate on this issue. i appreciate it so much. as you know, unfortunately, the number of homeless students and homeless families is raising significantly. and i have a tremendous working

relationship with secretary donovan in hud. he has been a great partner in a host of areas doing some creative things and i absolutely promise to work with him on this specific issue. >> appreciate it. yield back. >> thank you very much. mr. andrews, you're recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome back and thank you for your continuing accessibility and openness to ideas. it is very much appreciated. i share mr. chairman klein's opinion there is a better way to get to our common goal of gainful employment of assuring taxpayers and students we're getting value for the dollar and urge you to continue working with us on those you have. i am appreciative of that. i want to ask some questions about no child left behind and what i hope is an equally collaborative effort to improve that law. are you in favor of instituting a growth model for measuring ayp? >> absolutely. so i'm to be -- we have to focus

on growth and gain. and i'm happy to go into some depth about why that's important. but that is critically important to moving the country in the right direction. >> okay. i think that's something there is an awful lot of common ground on. secondly on no child left behind, your department has been extremely helpful in calling together leading educators and distance learning and online learning for which we're appreciative. i wonder what your thoughts were about including on the menu of school improvement options high quality, duly accredit online learning as one of the options that schools could look at when they're in the needs improvement category? >> it's a conversation we can absolutely have. it's interesting. this morning i met with a number of the leading tech executives from around the country and you know this as well as i do it is so interesting to me that there is another area frankly where education has lagged. technology has transformed how we do business. it's transformed how we interact socially. it is leading to democracy around the world and

education -- it is touched but not profoundly changed. and i think technology, distance learning, engaging students, not six hours a day five days a week but 24/7. the school we were at yesterday the president, melinda gates, they're sending home assignments on cell phones. almost every child in this country today rich or poor -- >> one thing to make our kids stop looking at their phones all the time. pretty good idea. >> i think we have been far too slow in education to learn and get the benefits of engaging students in different ways. i think technology can play a huge role, particularly in tough, economic times of getting much better results. >> many of the districts that aren't making ayp aren't making it because of deficiencies in special education. and there are two takes on why that is. the first is the schools aren't doing a good enough job in raising the achievement of classified kids. second is the standards are really inappropriate for those

children. where would you like to see us go on treating special education under no child left behind? >> let me just say and repeat what i said in my statement is that i give the current nco log great credit for shining spotlight on english language learners, homeless students, students with special needs. i think those are students who unfortunately far too often got swept under the rug and this idea of desegregating data and looking at achievement gaps, i'm focused on and we will absolutely continue. the bar far too often was lowered for students with special needs. i am all about raising the bar and expectations and holding schools, districts, states accountable for much better outcomes for young people. at the end of the day it is not about this test score or that. if you look at unemployment rates for students with special needs once they leave, they are devastatingly high. this is about having every single child again regardless of ability or disability having a chance to fulfill their potential. >> one thing i worry about is

that it can actually add to the stigma of the special needs child if the child's held to an unrealistic set of expectations. i'm with you. i want that child to absolutely reach every ounce of potential he or she has. but as schools begin to feel like they're not hitting ayp because of unrealistic standards on special-ed i think it actually adds to the stigma for those children which i don't think we want to do. >> another reason to fix the law. >> very quickly, finally, the chairman made reference to the increase in education spending since you took over. if you had to guess, and if you want to do it for the record go ahead. what percentage of the increase is going to college scholarships, teachers of reading and math, direct services to children, and students, and what percentage has been overhead? >> i don't have hard numbers. i will just say that my general principle is we have to continue to reduce overhead at our level, at the state level, at the local level. we have to give scarce resources to classrooms. we have to give scarce resources to the children and communities

who need the most help. i think other countries, i've spent a lot of time studying the data of higher performing countries and it is fascinating to look at lessons learned. one of the things many of the high performing countries have done is they've done an infinitely better job of closing achievement gaps, working with disadvantaged and poor children. >> i'd also note they've done a better job investing in education than we have in some cases and i thank the chairman and yield back. >> i thank you. >> thank you for being here today, mr. duncan. we appreciate it. i want to ask you a question also about expenditures but before i ask the question i want to say that i hope you will answer the question without implying something as you did a little while ago. you answered this question i think by saying you'd reduced 38 programs to 11 in the

department. however, you failed to mention that you've not cut any spending as a result of doing that. you have no savings in reducing those departments. you're continuing to spend the same amount of money or even more. so i've related questions. number one we spend about $2 trillion in the department of education i believe since title one was implemented. and yet we've seen reading scores go down. we've seen all kinds of scores go down. you can see it on the chart. you can see how spending has gone up and yet we've achieved nothing. do you have a single program in the department of education that you can point to measurable results as a result of spending

from the federal government? can you prove anything has come out of $1 of spending from the federal government? >> i don't know if i can prove $1 of spending. i can tell you outcomes for students with special needs have improved significantly. outcomes for students who are english language learners have improved significantly. we are an investor, coinvestor at the state and local level. again, only 8% to 10% of the money comes from us. still huge gaps there, still unacceptable gaps. but those have gone in the right direction. so i think we have to continue to invest. your initial point is absolutely right. at a time when the president is asking to flat line, domestic spending in a very tough budget time, he is asking for a $2 billion increase in education spending. and he fundamentally believes and i absolutely share that belief that we have to invest. we have to build, we have to educate our way to a better economy. better early childhood education, k-12 perform, more

access to pell grants. >> let me stop you, though. tell me where you had success that justifies that other than in special needs you've pointed that out but can you point to federal dollars creating the success? that's what i'm asking. >> well, again, we don't just fund any one program ourselves. we coinvest with states and local districts but there are lots of places, not just special needs, but title one schools where you're seeing remarkable results. i can point you to hundreds and hundreds of schools that are 99% poor, 99% minority, where 95% of young people are graduating and going to college prepared to be successful and our resources are helping create those opportunities, absolutely. >> i'll wait to get some specific information from you. thank you. >> gentle lady yields back. ms. woolsey, you're recognized.

>> thank you. secretary, can you give us a little bit more -- i have two subjects i'm going to try, two and a half and two and a half minutes on each. is there more detail you could provide us regarding rewriting of esa and how we're going to fund through state and local education agencies the proposed effective teaching and learning for a well-rounded education program? i'm specifically interested in core subjects like music and arts and worried that they'll be grouped with other nontested subjects and hoping that each subject will get us their own share of federal funds. so that schools will actually have an incentive to educate the whole child. >> yes, a great question. and it's arguably the biggest complaint i've heard from students themselves and parent and teachers is a narrowing of the curriculum under ncob.

i've heard of urban, rural, suburban, you name it. we actually want to invest about a billion dollars behind what we call well rounded education and i think reading and math are fundamental, foundational, but science, social studies, history, foreign language, environmental literacy, financial literacy, dance, drama, art, music, physical education, our students desperately need and deserve a well-rounded curriculum and education and we want to put a billion dollars behind that. let me say one more thing. it is so important that not happen just in high school but in first and second and third grade. it starts to develop their sense of self-esteem and they start to figure out their passions and if we're serious about reducing dropout rates and having many more students be successful and engaged in achievement gaps we have to do it through a well rounded education. >> that's good to hear. second subject. i'd like to talk about, and i'm really pleased that in the president's budget request he's asked for $150 million for

promise neighborhoods. this is an issue that's very important to me and has been for a long time. because so many of our kids go to school not ready to learn. and we know they go to school hungry. they need medical care. they don't have help with their homework. so tell me what you know -- how is this program going and how are we encouraging more schools and communities to come together so that they actually can provide the community services and have them located at the school site or someplace convenient? >> i'm just absolutely convinced the promise neighborhoods has unleashed this huge amount of creativity. it's funded this past year, about 20 communities for planning grants. we had over 300 communities apply. so you have folks coming

together, nonprofit, social service agencies, faith based institutions, k-12 districts, higher education coming together saying our children deserve so much better. i desperately wish we could have funded 200 of those 300. we had money to do 20. the $150 million we're requesting from congress will help us move from planning toward implementation. we will open that up to the country and i promise you we are going to have hundreds and hundreds of applicants. we only want to work in our nation's most distressed community and to give those children a chance to get a great education, to rally the entire community behind that effort. again, just like race to the top, obviously the vast majority of communities we were unfortunately able to fund in planning, many of them are moving toward -- they brought them to the table, outside their comfort zones, they're working together and that in and of itself has been absolutely invaluable. >> i'm sure you are able to track how much is saved in the long run by providing these services close at home. so i think i have time for one

more subject. and that's stem education for girls and minorities, mr. secretary. and we know young girls and minorities are losing interest in science and math at a much, too young an age. they're not choosing to pursue more advanced classes in high school or careers in these fields. how do you plan and how do you propose effective teaching and learning for science technology, engineering and mathematics programs? how are we going to increase this interest? because that is the future of our country. >> yesterday the president and i and linda gates were at tech boston, an amazing high school in boston. the vast majority of children live below the poverty line, come from very tough community. 95%, huge graduation rates, vast majority of graduates going on to college. an amazing stem focus. so there's $206 million budget

for effective teaching and learning to support the stem area. we have $80 million specifically to help prepare and retain stem teachers. there's $185 million request for new presidential teaching fellowship program, to help talented students who attend top tier teacher preparation programs to go into high needs fields like stem. we have a huge focus on stem in the investment innovation funneled and we want to put many more resources into r&d to continue to learn in this area. at the end of the day the president has given a simple challenge. he wants us to recruit, attract, and retain 100,000 new stem teachers as we move forward. we have the baby boom generation retiring. the only way we do a better job of reaching women and girls is making sure we have many more teachers not just in high school but in the primary grades who have a love for stem education. working through traditional pathways to increase the number and i'm a big fan of recertification. i want more folks who know chemistry, know biology, physics, coming in to do this

work and we want to be innovative in bringing in that next generation. >> we look forward to working with you on that. the gentle lady's time has expired. i'm always so excited when i hear you talk about alternative certification. >> thank you. >> i want to thank the secretary for being here. this is the fourth time and i've seen you more than any of the other secretaries and i appreciate your passion for what you do. i truly mean that. and what you tried to do and did some great things in chicago, i have a son that lives there, speaks very highly of you so thank you for that. you have probably one of the hardest jobs in america. one of the things that i have done when i go to rural east tennessee where i live is go see my teachers. i thought doctors were frustrated. you go get 40 or 50 teachers together and you'll get your ears pinned back. part of the reason is because of all of the bureaucracy we've created, the hoops they have to jump through. remember i'm in a race to the top state.

tennessee. we were one of the two states first selected. we're in the process. i had the teachers explain to me, what does this race to the top mean to you and how is it helping you when you're teaching in the first grade? when you're teaching in the second and third grade? and i really couldn't get a good explanation from the teacher who was actually being observed, so -- and this is the graph that i think that concerns me the most. we're going to have an 11% increase in spending as proposed in this budget and i was a mayor of johnson city, tennessee, before i came here. and you're absolutely correct. there were days if i could have written the federal government a check for the money they sent and put it below 1% we got in our community because the city, the county, and the state put the money in, it was a very small amount, but the teachers spend an inordinate amount of time qualifying. this is the graph that bothers me right here is the increase in federal spending and yet the outcomes were not -- we're not getting anything for our money so i think the accountability

and right here when you see more and more and more spending, but we're not getting any results for it. >> so a couple thoughts. first of all, i think tennessee has a chance to not just transform education in the state but help lead the country where we need to go. i have tremendous confidence in your new governor. he's passionate on this issue. you just, in the past couple days appointed a new state superintendent who is a nontraditional candidate, kevin hoffman, who i have tremendous respect for and actually met with him earlier and i think he'll do a great job. so i'm very, very hopeful about where the state can go and where the state can help to lead the country. your historical point for the country, does more dollars equate to better outcomes? of course not. to me what we try to drive from day one is this combination of investment but investment not in the status quo, investment in reform and whether that is at the early childhood level, the k-12 reform, or whether it's trying to increase access and completion rates at the higher end it can't be investment in a status quo with a 25% dropout

rate. >> i think if you, and i think congresswoman woolsey may have mentioned it, but i think if a child can't read by the third or fourth grade, and all of the teachers that were patients of mine through the years could predict who was going to drop out by the fourth grade, if we could do that, then that's where we ought to emphasize instead of worrying about all these other things because you're never going to -- if you're never going to graduate you know by the time you're 10 years old that is where you need to invest the money. the other frustration i had in hearing something was we have 96,000 schools in america. i think i heard this testimony last year, the year before last. 2,000 of those account for 50% of our dropouts. >> so a couple thoughts. your basic point on early investment, i couldn't agree with more. if we can have our babies, our 3 and 4-year-olds enter kindergarten ready to read and learn with their socialization skills intact, it gives us a great opportunity. we have to invest early in the

level playing field. i urge you not to give up on those children who are behind. i spent a lot of time in chicago working in a tough community with teenagers who started way behind and just hadn't had the opportunity and caught up quickly when challenged and with real support. so it is much tougher work. i'd love to get us all out of the catch up business and we have to do much better at the early side but where students don't have the opportunities we still need to provide a chance for them to get better. >> i totally agree. i think one of the other things i have with this frustration is it's so many teachers, half of our teachers who graduate from college don't teach in five years. there is a reason for that. i think part of the reason is the -- well, there are many reasons i'm sure, but all of the paperwork, it doesn't add anything to the classroom. i am very frustrated about that. >> so again, i just urge you to hold us accountable and push us everywhere i go. i ask teachers, principals, superintendents, state superintendents, tell us what we're doing to get in your way. tell us what requirements -- there is a series of reporting requirements that are duplicative we've already changed so we are trying to get

better here but you think about the teacher. they're hit at the local level, district hit at the state, hit by us. it's too by us, it's too much. we are trying to lead by example. the more you challenge us to get rid of nonhelpful paperwork, we have to do that. >> thank you. i yield back. >> thank you mr. chairman. secretary duncan, it's always a pleasure to have you testify before our committee. i commend you on the work you are doing on investing in education these couple of years you have been heading the department of education. i want to ask a question that is easy and doesn't cost much money. that is that there are some school districts in the great state of texas that start school early august, not after labor day and you spoke about

increasing school average daily attendance above 90%, which is being done today in some of my school districts in my district, so i know it's doable. but, if we could give the flu shots to the students in early august as well as the teachers and maybe the staff that serve them in the cafeteria and drive the busses, i think we would have fewer children getting sick and more being able to attend. that should be easy and same cost that we do it in august versus doing it in october. is that something you can support? >> absolutely and work very, very close with secretary sebelius on issues. h1n1 she did a remarkable job. it makes all the sense in the world. >> i'll send you a memo because we need it in texas. i also want to say i believe our

nation must do more to expand accessibility and affordability to access higher education. what is your vision for hsi, tcu's and other msi's. what type of outcomes do you expect and what is your time line for the upcoming hsi grant competition? >> hsi or hsbu's can't simply survive. we have to help them thrive. we continue to invest significantly in them. obviously the pell grant increases are very significant to those populations. we direct fund hsis and have increased the funding over time. we want to put into place the hawkins scholarship. so many teachers of color come through that.

i want a more diverse work force. the administrators don't reflect the diversity of students. we have to work on that. we are going to continue to invest in hsi and hscbu. the final thing i'll say is i visited a number of them and continue to recruit more teachers of color to come into education. frankly, many schools haven't shown leadership in this area. hsi is a natural phenomenal pipeline of teacher talent for the classrooms. >> i commend you for what you have done in increasing the funding. it definitely exceeds what we did in 1946 with the gi bill and so i commend you. now, we need a time line to get into the competition and get to that money and recruit students into colleges. last question, if i still have time would be that the we

reintroduce hr 778 the graduation promise act and that we must transform the nation's factories. how do you propose to build the capacity of the nation's lowest performing high schools and middle schools? >> this is where the school grant is so important for the horrendous drop out rate. we have 100,000 schools. 2,000 produce the drop outs. 75% of the drop outs are african-american and latino boys and girls. this idea of reform, we have 1,000 schools for the first time in the country being turned around as we speak. we have to continue to challenge and invest. unfortunately, as you know all too well congressman, in many communities these schools have been a drop out factor for

decades, ten, 20, 30, 40, 50 years. this has not gotten a lot of media attention because it's been a lot of hard work and controversy. everyone, school leaders, scu t superintendents, school boards doing different things for students. they won't turn out to be as. some will be okay. for the first time, our country is encouraged doing this work. it makes me hopeful of where we can be. >> thank you. my time has expired. >> thank the gentleman. >> thank you mr. chairman. nobody at this point has asked, but i think there are important points to continue forward. the department of education doesn't seem to be the only department with a graph like the one we saw with increased

spending with actual results and as refreshing as we sit in this committee today, it's a bipartisan discussion. one thing my colleagues might agree on is one of the biggest impedestrianmen impediments. the department of education has been with us over three decades and we are not seeing the outcomes. one of the things we have not touched on is where the teachers come into the picture here. we had a panel a couple weeks ago where we asked them, what were the top three things they are hearing from teachers. i'm sure you get an earful. what would you say are the top three concerns you are hearing from our educators? >> let me go back one more point on the results we saw.

we are not, again, not the same level as other countries. we are at a disadvantage. complacent teachers, the well-rounded curriculum i talked about. it's a huge challenge teachers struggle with. i haven't met a teacher yet who is scared of accountability. they want to be fair. the idea of growth and gain is a huge one for them. if you are my teacher and i come to you three grade levels behind and i leave you a grade level behind you have done a great job on me. under the current law, you are a failure. you have accelerated my learning. we have to focus on that. teachers want to be held to a fair standard and want the room to be creative. to me, it's where there's a high bar, more flexibility at the school level and district level.

we have to look at that. room to move. better accountability and a well-rounded education i think are among the tops of great educators. >> i think that's fair. the teachers i have spoken with would echo that. as a physician, i get to have lots of conversations about teaching. one of the concerns is lack of discipline in the classrooms. i thought it was interesting that you said a school in miami showed an improvement with the discipline problem and it was headed in the right direction. there's an area of focus. i hear from teachers they cannot control their classroom. the second thing is they seem to be lacking, a little bit, in terms of pride in their profession. i think it's because of the beaurocracy and regulation. if we have frustrated teachers, we are less effective teachers.

in a sense they can handcuff the lack of flexibility. i know in tennessee, they have to teach to the standardized testing and they have a lot of pressure put on them by the administration to make those numbers the way they should be. when we were kids, a standardized test came in from recess, dropped it on your desk and said teach it. >> if you are teaching to a test, the best way students do well is give them rich content and to have them be creative in doing that. again, when the curriculum is narrowed and teaching to the test, it's not good for children or teachers. we can have a high bar, giving teachers lots of room to hit the bar and be creative is important. the other important is critically important. it's true, the teaching has been

beaten down. we have to elevate the profession. in our high performing countries around the globe, teachers are revered in south korea they are nation builders. it's a powerful concept. our teachers have to be considered or believed to be nation builders. we lose too many good young teachers due to lack of support and crash of management skills. the only way we are going to get to where we need to go, lead the world is to recruit and retain the hardest working young people. other countries have done it and we haven't. we can get better at it. >> thank you. i appreciate your comments. i yield back my time. >> mr. secretary, how are you? sorry i wasn't able to be with you yesterday in massachusetts. i appreciated your visit. i think everybody is interested in eliminating waste, fraud and

abuse. i commend the fact that you and the president are spending time making sure it's eliminated in the education budget. i think we have cut beyond those areas and into the bone. both the white house and congress have the coverage of taking on the larger issue of paying your fair share. at the end of last year, this congress and the white house allowed for continued tax so people weren't paying their fair share. $800 billion over ten years. we have uncollected tax ek pendtures to corporations every year. we have the lowest tax corporate rate of all countries. google paid 2.4% tax rate last year. the do no harm first company. ge and bowing paid no taxes over the last several years. we are debating on eliminating and reducing very important

programs. there's a lack of courage of profiles on a number of occasions and i think we have to find some if we want to do it. there was a good statement, the balance is wonderful. you are on a bicycle trying to balance standing still, you fall over. you have to pedal forward. we have to pedal forward to outdo china and germany. we have to have a sound investment in education. pell grants is an area on that. it's great concern we see hr-1 eliminating 9.5 million college students $800 each. 135,000 in my state of massachusetts. 1.7 million low income students aren't going to qualify if the cut is maintained. there's great concern there. there's also a concern among

many and many about the administration's proposal to eliminate the pell grant and summer studies. some mention well it hasn't been shown to speed up, but it haven't been in place long enough to get an associates degree. if we are going to compete on that, we have to get people through and get that degree and back to work or out in the first instance. how do you expect to meet the need and eliminate the program. >> i appreciate your thoughts on this. where we scaled back $800 to $900 on pell grants, it means there are a lot of young people working hard, coming from families struggling financially. what's amazing to me that we haven't talked about, at a time of high unemployment, we have hundreds of jobs untilled each day because we don't have the

workers to fill those jobs. it's amazing to hear how many ceo's are trying to hire and there isn't the talent we are creating to fill the jobs. any cutback to pell would have devastating long term effects. jobs and companies and corporations are going to go to where they are. it's going to be our country or other countries. we are going to be at a competitive vantage or not just low-skill jobs but high-skilled jobs of the future. we have to invest there. obviously the decision to say no to pell grants, is not one that i enjoyed or wanted to make or felt good about. it's simply in tough budget times trying to make a decision to conserve the money for the people who use the pell grants.

it's a savings of $7 billion. in an ideal world, would i choose to do that? of course not. >> a student aid expert says federal income tax revenue would pay for the cost of double in pell grants. let me ask you one more question. in the higher education opportunity, in the house, i put in a provision in the senate with respect to model programs and higher education. the chairman has a concern about that as do many others. it's only $11 million. the fact of the matter is for model programs and particularly community colleges with a number of students who put the models together. is there a way to take a look at that? there's a serious need with children ageing into that grouping that need to have sustainable way to get through life. >> if i may, the gentleman's

time expired and we would love the answer for the record. >> happy to look at it. >> thank you, gentlemen. mr. hunter. >> thank you mr. chairman. mr. secretary, great to see you. love your name. he was just talking about taxes and how much we are spending. in comparison to china, if you add state, low candidate spending, we are paying more per kid than i think any other nation if you add everything together. i don't know the answer to this question. i'm pretty sure we pay more state, local and federal than any other country. what is the real correlation between spending cash and getting good results in education? when you look at china or any other country, germany was

mentioned, any other country you throw out there. obviously, their structure is different. south korea, they have a different structure. it's not just about money and increasing funding into the future forever. what is it then? what's the corelation? >> to be clear, i'm not pushing more investment in the status quo, i'm pushing in the direction we need to go. a couple things, i can make a compelling case, the best investment we can make long term and the savings to our society is huge. what you see in other countries, they have been smarter and more strategic in how they invest. other countries target the students in need of the most help. i think we have to continue to increase access to higher education. again, there's so few good jobs out there if you have a high

school diploma. it's not looking at investment for status quo. i am advocating for investment in an area they need to. >> we are going to spend more per kid and we are not seeing any corelation between the spending and the actual result. so, why not change the entire structure, then, if we are going to do that and reinvest the money we have into a different system, which is what you are doing and we are trying to do here. why increase it at all? if you cut and find savings, then we could talk about the pell grants and things like that. >> so, again, you and i may disagree on it. i think going forward, we are going to see many more young people trying to go to college and get a higher education, four year, two year. years ago, you didn't need that. you could graduate from high school and still get a good job,

own your own home and support your family. all those jobs are gone. in a knowledge-based society, 38-year-olds and 58-year-olds are going back. the pell grant requests have gone up significantly. >> which i understand. i understand all this. talking k-12. if it's the structure that really matters and it's not increasing funding for a bad system, why not just take away the bad spending, if you will, the things you don't believe in and restructure and reinvest and try to get more funding that increases funding for a kid, which had not been proven it has correlation to the results? >> i would argue with the increased investment and the opportunity to drive systemic change, you are seeing breakthroughs you have never seen in the country. again, 41 states raising standards for the first time ever, voluntarily.

not dummy downed standards. they are working together on the assessments. three dozen states eliminating barriers. every state eliminating laws that prohibited the student achievement and teacher evaluation. all of that happened in part of our ability to reward great behavior. >> are we still spending on bad along with the good? >> no question. we have to continue on every dollar we handed out to governors. you have to make tough calls. we handed out a document we would be happy to share. there are smart ways to cut and dumb ways to cut. i worry about it. >> could you see being successful if the amount of funding does not go up, could you still be successful if you cut the right way and put the money into the systems that you know work? could you do that? >> we have to do that anyway.

i continue to think we underinvest. we underinvest significantly in the most disadvantaged children's community. >> thank you for your testimony. thank you mr. chairman. >> i thank the gentleman. miss davis. >> thank you for working so closely with the committee. despite the overwhelming evidence that teachers matter most when it comes to learning, low-income students receive their fair share of access to teachers. we would wish that all, even the most ordinary of teachers could become extraordinary. i think that's the goal in any system to do that. the reality is, as long as there are inequities of teaching from classroom to classroom and school to school, we are still going to see gaps in the achievement and it's tough to close the gap. you mentioned that earlier.

i'm wondering, in the budget itself, how can we look to that and see sea blueprint what prompts them to ensure the students who need the strongest teachers have access to those teachers? >> i gaagain, this is a huge is. what other countries have done is they have systemically solved the problem. other countries put in place great expenses to go to the toughest communities to get the support they need. we have had almost no incentives and frankly lots of disincentives to go to underserved communities. we can't talk honestly about closing the achievement gap if we don't close the opportunity

gap. we have so many examples of high poverty where students are beatling the odds because they are getting great talent there. how are we doing it? we talked about the school improvement grants? a huge investment in the schools. what i have said very publicly, if your community cannot attract a good math or science teacher, pay that great teacher more to come and give them support they need. not everyone agrees with me on that. i don't see how our students take apal cue louse and physics without that. pay 50 grand to go to another community, use our resources to do that. we have the teacher incentive fund. we go out on a voluntary basis. we have dozens and dozens of people looking at this. i'll give you one last example. the district i think has done better than any others i have

seen is char lat. they have 20 schools under performed. you are putting the best talent into those schools. i met with a set of teachers and principals taking on this work. one of the principals said to me, he was a star principal and about to retire. he was given the opportunity to go to a tough school. he said, this is the most moral and ethical work i have done in my career. to me, it's a profound statement. they are systemically, through support, getting great talent. >> for those schools not applying for grants or the schools or states are not applying for grants, obviously, there are many schools not in that position or don't choose to do that. how do we do that? it ties in with evaluations. >> they go to every state. every state we give that money

to. figure out the bottom 5% of schools. if you need after school. go to school on saturdays, go all summer. whatever it takes, more teacher planning time, more awards for teachers, whatever it takes. that went out by form to every state in the country. >> are there some outside, value day tors or mediators to help schools do this when there's a lot of resistance? what do you suggest? >> is the country -- we are in our infancy. i'm so proud that historically, there are literally a handful of schools turned around. this school year, there are 1,000 schools being turned around. we are starting to build a community of practice. we are learning what works and what doesn't. you are starting to have critical mass doing the work. we want to do more every year and come back.

if we can turn around the bottom 5% of schools in the country over the next three or four or five years, the difference it's going to make is huge. there's growing awareness. again, amazing courage that i have seen. union leaders, district superintendent school board members doing things very, very differently. i'm five years from now, we will be at a different place. >> how is it being shared? they can find it other ways. >> excuse me, her time has expired. >> we'll continue. >> thank the gentle lady. it is mr. barlotta. >> thank you mr. chairman and secretary duncan for your time here today. last month, this committee heard testimony from mr. andrew olson from the cato institute. on the lack of meaningful return on our investment of federal funds with one notable exception, the dc opportunity

scholarship program. yet this administration has not supported that and put forward a budget proposal that increases spending on other programs that have not significantly approved student achievement. when the nation is facing inconceivable debt levels and the taxpayers have been clear about washington getting the fiscal house in order, my question is, how can we afford to ignore successful programs like the d.c. choice and keep pouring money into costly programs that haven't shown results? >> on a d.c. scholarship program, we supported them. if you look at the data, it was mixed. i'll go back and look. it was after reading and math went up. the other one did not go up significantly. what i said repeatedly is the private sector, individuals,

fill a philanthropy. they are not just saving two or three children and leaving the other 500 to drown. the d.c. school system is going in the right direction. long way to go, but real progress and my goal has to be to help every single child and have a great system of public schools so we can't just go to bed and be comfortable having saved a couple. that's been the mentality. the d.c. public school has been through disaster. we allowed that to exist and be the status quo. we have seen more progress in d.c. than in a long time. we want to make d.c. a world class system and i think we have the opportunity to do that with local leadership. >> i yield back my time.

>> i thank the gentleman. >> thank you mr. chair. mr. secretary, good to see you today. thanks for being here. i appreciate almost everything, not quite everything, but almost everything or at least much of what you and the president are trying to do on the education front. preschool through secondary education and graduate school for that matter. i'm happy as an iowan you have a carve out you mentioned. i'm looking forward to seeing the details of that. as i communicated over the last couple years, it's been very, very difficult for states like iowa, especially the rural school districts that don't have grant writers race to the top. also, i'm happy that over the course of the last several years, we have had a lot of discussions and you seem to be

implementing the changes for nclb. certainly moving multiple mesh sures of achievement. i think it's more important than a high-stakes test and being more flexible when it comes to subgroups. i think that's really important, too. growth models. when i first came to congress, i could not figure out why the original law was comparing one group of students one year to another. it was apples to oranges. didn't make sense to me. growth models are very important. what i want to talk about is the pell grant program and in particular, the year round pell grant program and the proposed cuts you folks are making to that program. in your fy 2012 budget, you propose to cut the pell grant program. this is a significant one.

first and foremost, they help people in poverty rise to the middle class and become more productive citizens. last year, already around the country, the first year of operation, 2009-2010, 760,000 students nationwide took advantage of access to financial aid over the summer to graduate faster and come out of college with less debt. i think it's making a bigger difference especially in community colleges. there are many colleges where they have nursing programs or other programs that really are in effect over the summer. so, for students to access pell grants over the summer, it's really, really important. i just think this doesn't make sense to cut your round pell grants for a variety of reasons.

i guess what i would like you to do, if you could, is just give rational to why you are cutting the program. >> again, the real concerns. i share the concerns. i am the biggest one you will find for increasing access to pell grants. with health care reform, we have $40 billion of pell grants. it's the biggest since the gi bills. it's one of the things i'm most proud of. in an ideal world, we wouldn't have made that recommendation. at a time of budget pressure, we made the tough decision to really fight to maintain current levels of pell grant funding and not see the 5550 cutback. we made the tough decision to maintain the programs for every student to scale back on a twice a year program. at the community college level

the 5550 means whether you are 18, 48 or 68, you can go to community college for free. we think it's so important. we want to invest $2 billion in community colleges. as families get back on their feet, it's going to be a huge vehicle to do that. it's not like making a decision we wanted to make or made lightly, we are just facing tremendous budget pressure and made a tough decision. >> i ran around my district for weeks and went through the community colleges. the students, not just the administrators are aware of the proposed cutbacks. very concerned about fy '11 and what it's going to do. the summer pell grants, the year round pell grant program, i can't reiterate strongly enough, the testimonials i have heard

from students and administrators and teachers and how important that is. if we are trying to increase the size of the middle class and have more productive citizens. i think that -- at least i hope you will reconsider that cut. >> i share your concern. >> the gentleman's time expired. mr. thompson. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you secretary. it's good to see you. i appreciate your testimony. out of all the pages, the small section on technical training as we talked about in the past, it's an area, i think, that is an area, there's nothing more important to the competitiveness of the work force. i think really, it's proven its salt in terms of outcomes.

it's appropriate. i follow my good friend from iowa. i had the chance to spend a period of time with four impressive young people or persons from iowa who are involved in career and technical education from different fields. they shared with me some data that showed what those students in career and technical education how they outperformed and it's limited to that situation and how they outperformed in math and science because of the value of applied education. it really was apparent -- i just -- in america's competitivene competitiveness, with the retirement of baby boomers. it's a bit of a mixed message in your testimony. we are on the same page with technical education.

harvard's pathway to prosperity, you said for too long, it's been a neglected stepchild of education reform. that neglect has to stop. we need to reimagine and make it urgent. there's an enormous overlooked program in school systems and ability to prosper as a nation. i think your remarks were brilliant. >> i stole them from you. >> yeah. what i wanted to come to, i agree with your setments and i serve as co-chair. i think it really has proven its results and training in a qualified work force for a small federal investment. it's specifically in education. despite that, the statesmen, the statement you made, the budget request and your testimony, you know, you affirm your support

for it. frankly, the budget request for ct, or ct programs over 20%. just two questions. how do you expect schools to offer more ct programs that we need with purer resources. >> it's a great question. leadership in these areas is important to me. i'll give you one more stat that was interesting. we tracked the data of students in ct programs and they had higher graduation rates and higher gpa. it wasn't just about that course. it was engaging them in different ways in the broader school invirnment that was very, very positive. i will say that the results for cta across the country are mixed. there's amazing programs creating real jobs and others

that are -- it's a substantial investment. we challenged the sector where things aren't working we have to do things differently. we have to get better results. pockets of excellence but that hasn't always been the norm. they haven't leading to the results we need. >> how do we do that? >> learn from what is working. we need greater attention to outcomes. there's too many places saying we offered this class. what does that mean? what is it leading to? we don't always get great answers. by replicating, it gives us the room to invest more going forward. >> i yield back. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. chairman. hello mr. secretary. just as there's a growing bipartisan or consensus over the

problem, i think there's a growing consensus of supporting education. it's not just educators who know this, but scientists, economists and business leaders. the l.a. chamber of commerce. the military telling us this is important. we heard from the republican witness dr. ed hatcher, the you want of the louden county public schools. when asked about the most important innovation we can make to improve outcomes and you have had a lot of questions he repried pre-k, pre-k, pre-k. obviously, i am very pleased there's 350 million in the early learning challenge fund. this is one of the new programs we are pursuing as we focus on

using scarce dollars for things that work. can you highlight the research on the quality early learning? >> we don't need another study. the most recent one i saw was from vanderbilt university. there have been dozens of hundreds of studies to demonstrate it here. what we are trying to do with early learning challenge fund is race to the top of early childhood. increase access to disadvantaged children. we know quality can be uneven. this is glorified child care. it concerns me you have many governors scaling back or cutting back on early childhood

programs. i met with the governors and said i recognize it's tough times. i don't think it's a place to cut back. you have to continue to invest. three to four-year-old's can't lobby. we reduced the investments at a great cost long-term. to congressman hunter's point on reallocating resources, use our dollars during tough budget times to maintain full day high quality early childhood programs. that flexibility already exists. a lot of new governors don't understand that. be creative. that should be one of the last things you cut, not one of the first. >> i couldn't agree with you more. it's time we all recognize every dollar we spend on quality, i always use that adjective, quality, in front of early

learning. every dollar we spend comes back to us many times full, up to $17 worth. for those of us who, all the business people here talking about cause and effect of the dollars spent, this is the one area where there's so much research, i say get on with it. i'm glad the president's budget reflects that. since i -- do i have more time? yes. the issue of effective teaching, because that teacher standing in front of the classroom is the single most person standing there. does your budget reflect an emphasis on encouraging the states to really, the focus on appropriate measures of effectiveness? >> that's an area that for the country for far too long didn't move. we have states with laws on the books that prohibited teachers and students. it's backwards. there's a remarkable outburst and there's no one district that

got it right, but many are breaking through. you have to evaluate teachers. you can never look at one test score. look at multiple things. student achievement and gains have to be a significant part of that. this conference to be held in denver around the country, labor and management. we had fascinating conversations of what folks are doing. it's a country, we are in an infancy. we are putting resources behind it. we are seeing folks who thought of the issues coming together and i think it's going to help strengthen the profession in an important way. >> so the president's budget reflects support for this kind of effort going on all across the country? >> investments not just for teachers themselves but the systems that help teachers be

successful. move toward higher standards. it's something teachers are looking for. they have been crying out for that for a long time. creating the infrastructure to allow them to be very, very successful. massive investments there. >> thank you. i yield back. >> thank the gentle lady. doctor. >> thank you. i want to start out with commenting on recent comments that were made about fairness in the u.s. tax code even though it's not a tax code discussion. i want to clarify that i guess my definition of fairness isn't the same as what's described when 45% of the american people don't pay any income tax at all. the top tax bracts are paying 35% of their income and the top are paying 70% of all income tax. i disagree with that definition of fairness and i want to

clarify that in the context of budg budg budg budgetary. the epa, this is a different direction than what has been taken so far. they have five education efforts in their recent congressional document talking about support and work and partnership with k-12 schools. federal and state agencies to establish priorities and leverage resources. lastly, an effort to increase promotion of green principles and increase the nation's scientific education. i would like to know if the department of education has been involved in those efforts through the e prngs a because it seems they should be talked about in education, not through

epa. >> we had a good partnership with administrator jackson and i know they are doing tough and important work in the new york city school system now. your basic point about collaborating and sharing resources, i couldn't agree with more. where we can have students and districts focus on these issues, do them in a thoughtful way and creative way. the knowledge for students, the savings of districts. they are all up signs. we need to continue to collaborate. yes, sir. >> i guess my concern is that, you know, there appears to be an educational political agenda through epa to, i wouldn't call it indoctrinate but would you consider green principles as something we should be doing at the k-12 level when there's broad difference of opinion on

this subject? >> i don't know if i call it political activities. i can speak as a parent of two young children at home that my wife and i continue to get a very good education every day if we don't recycle and we waste water and don't turn off the lights. >> that's fine. should the federal government through an agency like epa be telling our children these things or should it be us? i'm a father of four children. i totally agree. we recycle everything. we want to do that. we want a clean environment for our children and grandchildren. the question in my mind is, again, through the educational system, should we be, in my view promoting what i consider a political agenda to an agency that's not involved directly in our educational system? >> you and i may agree or

disagree on whether there's a political agenda there. there are many things schools are asked to do that maybe they shouldn't in the past had to do. your four children are lucky to have an active family. unfortunately, we have many, many children coming to school who don't have those lessons at home. this is a little bit off topic. i had tens of thousands of children in chicago who i fed three meals a day. i sent food home with them. people challenged me, was that the role of the school system to provide nutrition. in an ideal world, i wouldn't want to do that but i had to. whether it's financial literacy, schools are asked to do more than they have in the past. is it a good thing? i don't know. if they are not eating and getting eye classes, they have to step up to provide the

opportunities. >> i disagree with that. my view is environmental protection agency is not the avenue for the government to address these issues. if anyone does, it should be state, local or federal education people that really understand education. finally, i would like to say thank you for your testimony and for your advocate si for our nation's children. thank you. >> thank you, sir. >> thank the gentleman. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you mr. secretary for being here. my two cents worth on employment. i hope that as that ruled, there's some date for implementation. it brings accountability to the student for their education that they are taking a loan on and to the taxpayers on how the money is being used.

i think it's a good process we are in and hope we continue it. the other observation, i was glad the secretary said we need the educators at the table as we look at turning schools around. my colleague also mentioned the stress and the pride of the profession. i think you also mentioned that the profession is beat down right now for a lot of reasons. i would suggest all those things are true. but, i would also suggest that recently, we have seen a lot of attack and commentary against teachers based on collective bargaining agreements based on the cost of the budget and the stress some states are going through. the governor of wisconsin was bold enough to call teachers a privileged class that needed to be reduced more.

i think as we try to lift the moral of teachers that kind of commentary works in the opposite direction. it makes it harder for us to find good people to want to continue to be the critical part in education. that's educators. you also said something secretary. this questions back home all the time. you said when i was head of the public school in chicago, ignore the state to get stuff done at the local level. the improvement grant being a strategy. a question. you hear more and more whether it's english learner issues or incentives to go into certain schools. more atonmy in terms of resource allocation so they can apply it that way. how do you see that question? >> i absolutely agree with that sentiment. so, you know, school improvement

grants go through local community. they decide the most effective resources. the teacher incentive fund grants that come up with their ideas. we want to reward. we are pushing everybody hard to change. we are pushing management. they all have to get better. our department has been part of the problem. we have stifled innovation and creativity and finding it. we want to reward excellence and put resources behind places willing to do things differently. i think what we have done is unleashed a huge amount of creativity and work. we want to continue to take the scale. >> middle schools, proportionate share of title i funds, being a piece of legislation.

i think they both directly and indirectly talk about the share of title i funds going to those two parts. >> trio and again, if we want to get serious about the drop-out prices, fifth, sixth, seven and eighth grade. we know where students are struggling. how do we make sure they are taking high school algebra to take calculus as a senior. we have to provide opportunities early. the middle school is neglected. your focus is hugely important and we want to invest title i, school improvement, scarce resources to get great talent in there. often students start to learn interest in science and technology. the teachers don't quite know the content. getting more great stem teachers not just for senior year, but

fifth, sixth and seventh grade. >> thank you. yield back, sir. >> i thank the gentleman. >> thank you mr. chairman and secretary duncan, your staying power at the witness table is impressive. >> you are wearing me down. >> that was the school system, cook county and chicago school system of my birth and education as well. for you to stay there that long indicates your staying power. thank you for staying with us. it was mentioned the d.c. opportunity scholarships program and there's certainly some disagreement on whether or not that should have been expanded or continued. i personally am one that likes to see a lot of competition and variety. a lot of framework for research

and development that comes from things like that. moving into my question into first in the higher education realm. the department finalized regulations that caused private and faith based college universities great concern as they will most likely require increased regulation by the government effecting potentially the atonmy and religious liberty of these schools. are you planning on clarifying these regulations or making accommodations for the concerns that we might have? >> this will be great feedback. we'll say where we are. under the regulations, states are permitted to exempt religious schools. that exists now. >> if i just jump in, is that just for the mission courses,

i.e., if it was a seminary or divinity school they would be exempt from the regulations just in the courses of religious education or would it be like one of my alma maters, wheaten college where it's across the board. >> wheaten is a great university. it's exempting the schools. >> the schools in total. >> what congress requires of the state authorized schools. we are asking them to do a couple basic things, not be heavy handed or anything like that. a state has to have a process to review and act on complaints. a place to hear what the issues are. a school is authorized by name as an educational institute by a charter, statute, provision or anything issued by the state. and the school complies with state approval. just the basic common sense

things that states have the responsibility to give them by congress -- >> there definitely is a lot of latitude in there for concern for how far, how aggressive the regulating entity of the states might be. >> i understand that. we'll continue to provide clarity. there's some states like new york who have done this extraordinarily well. there are examples out there that are thoughtful, not heavy handed. i hear your concern. >> i applaud that effort. again, the diversity that's there, this country is not built on that as i'm sure you agree with. >> we have the best system in the world. >> they all come here. moving to a foundational area with early childhood education, the administrations education budget wishes to spend, as i read it, $350 million for

education programs. early learning challenge fund. this leads to more requirements for preschool program that is are privately run or faith based as well. what will you do to ensure protection for them and the service of private preschool centers as you go forward. >> it's a voluntary program. they can compete or not compete. there are two goals, increase access and to make sure it's high quality. they are the only two goals. >> won't be any hurdles that would keep a school like this from applying or being able to apply due to resources or to gain the resources because of some of the standards set up? >> we want to go to the most

distressed communities to give those children a chance at life. that's the goal. >> thank you. i yield back my time. >> thank the gentleman. in order to keep my promise, we're going to go on the three-minute clock. i would like to give everybody a chance to ask a question. mr. payne. >> thank you. for the new members that came or those who have been here for the whole time, anyway, try to stay to three minutes. very good. clever. i didn't know you looked over here. anyway, last week, mr. secretary, during a committee hearing on education regulation, i asked the louden county if they thought they would be focused on educating equally.

nclb had not shed light on such an achievement gap. to this, he answered the our co actually disaggregated before it was law. we realized, he said, that when you are as wealthy and have as high a social economic index as we have, children do not have those same opportunities and are in greater danger of not succeeding. so i think it's very fair to say that probably one of the most important changed outlooks of the law has been the disaggregation of data and reporting that, and i think it would be fair to say that had the law not been passed, practices would not have changed. we recognize in a place like this county, it would have been easy to let the performance of

our students mask the issues we face. as far as i'm concerned this is the signal strength of the law. now, his statement supports much of what has been alluded to today. nclb drew attention to poor performance of specific subgroups in our schools and held schools accountable for improving their performance. however, some have inferred that the department intends to have a targeted accountability focused only on the lowest 5% of schools. these schools are -- that educate a significant share of the nation's disadvantaged youth, but there are also a large number of disadvantaged students in schools above the 5% threshold who prior to nclb were not receiving the attention they deserve because as dr. hartwick said last week, it was too easy to let the overall wonderful performance on average mask the issue they face. so in my opinion i find it

equally important to hold schools with demonstrated capacity to educate some of their students to high levels accountable for educating all students regardless of the demographics. can you assure us that, you know, reiterate how the blueprint maintains accountability for students subgroups since you're just basically going to focus on the lower 5% and that other group not disaggregating can go back to the way it was? >> it's a great point. you can rest assured we're committed -- in my opening statement how we are going to continue dising a aggregated data. we want to continue to look at those gaps and challenge them and so we will absolutely maintain that accountability. let me give you one more though what i would also argue what never happened under nclb is those districts that did a great

job of closing the gaps, no one ever got rewarded. no one ever got recognized. we didn't learn from that. yes, we want to hold folks accountable but we want to shine a spotlight on success. where you have districts that are closing gaps and helping every school be successful, we want to recognize them and reward them and learn from them and give them more flexibility so rewards at the top, challenge folks to continue to improve, massive interventions. if districts and schools aren't making differences, intervention if you need be, but also reward excellence. >> gentleman's time has expired. mr. kelly. >> thank you, mr. chairman. secretary, good to see you in person after talking to you on the phone. i know you have a great passion for this, but i really do question where we're going with the spending because it's not that we don't spend enough. it's just that we don't get enough for what we spend. and if there was no clearer message on november 2nd, we have to rein in the spending. i'm just looking at this. for a budget that has increased

68% in the last three years, in 2009 alone the budget tripled. my question, mr. hunter asked this several times, why not redeploy funds that aren't working and why isn't part of the strategy let's eliminate what's not working and put it into what is working. i keep hear being so many countries are doing it better than we are. well, obviously we must know what other countries are doing. why continue down the same path we're on and not getting results for it. and the private sector, i have to tell you, when it's your own money, your own skin in the game, you don't have that option of just spending it. i think the worst thing we can do is continue to throw money at a problem. we have to start coming down to a strategy that actually fixes the problem. what's the strategy because a lot of people are stating to wonder why do we even have a doe? we're spending tons of money and we're not seeing results for it. >> what i would argue to you, sir, in the past two years you have seen more changes in this country than the past decade or two combined, and i would make a pretty compelling case to you that because for the first time

our department was rewarding excellence and encouraging that kind of creativity and ingenuity and courage. you have seen those dramatic changes. so i would be the first to concur with you. our department historically has been part of the problem. i have told the story repeatedly i almost had to sue our department of education when i ran the chicago public schools for the right to tutor my children after school. no sense whatsoever. i won that fight. >> i would say i'm not an adversary. there's not a person in this room that doesn't want better education for our kids but there's also on behalf of the taxpayers who fund every one of these programs, where is the return on the investment and when do we start to see that there is actually a positive to this because everything i look at looks at a tremendous spend and a flat line. >> i understand that. so i would argue that there's compelling, compelling data that investments in early childhood education, particularly for disadvantaged children are hugely important. yes, we want to invest there and we haven't in the past. i think there's been a strategic error on our part. we're trying to drive dramatic k

to 12 perform, higher standards, better assessments, much more flexibility to reward excellence, and we're asking to continue to fund young people who are trying to go to college with access to pell grants because they need that. >> and i understand that, but my question goes back to we keep spending more money and at some point it's got to stop. it's absolutely got to stop. the argument always is well, there's a lot of people out there that aren't paying their fair share. really? look what is being paid. there's no other country in the world that invests more in education than the united states and has a lower return on the investment. my question and again i'm not adversari adversarial. at what point do we realize what we're doing is not working and when are we going to stop? i understand you're saying there's compelling evidence it's getting better -- >> if i can interrupt, i'm sorry, the gentleman's time has expired. >> thank you. mr. scott, you're recognized for three minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, mr. secretary for being with us. you mention the achievement gap, the 1954 brown decision talked

about the harm inflicted on children when the children of the minority race were denied an equal educational opportunity. the school system maintains a significant and persistent achievement gap of the children of the minority race being denied an equal educational opportunity in violation of their civil rights. >> i think all of us have to use every fiber in our body to close those achievement gaps and where you have huge and gaping achievement gaps, we're trying to push more dramatic change than you've ever seen. every child has a right to have a great education. we have to provide those opportunities, particularly for disadvantaged children. that's the only way we end cycles of poverty and social failure. >> speaking of civil rights, in the department of education, they give out grants. if the sponsor of a grant insisted on discriminating in employment based on religion or which church a job applicant attended, would your department

continue to fund such a program or not? >> i understand the significance of the issue and the question, and it's one that i will follow up with with the department of justice. >> so it's possible that you might continue to fund an organization that is -- has a policy of employment discrimination? >> again, this is an area where the department of justice, i think, can provide some real guidance and help and i will follow up with them directly. >> civil rights implications of zero tolerance policies, particularly in pre-k, people being expelled, can you tell us what the department's position is on zero tolerance, kicking kids out of school without any services? >> so one of the things our office of civil rights is doing is looking at places where you might have disproportionate rates of ex suptiopulsions or ss whether it's by race or whether it's young boys of color. and where we are expelling students to the streets, we're part of the problem.

and so we are going to track that. we're going to challenge that. and there are many places that are finding creative ways to help the students who struggle stay engaged in school and be successful. we need to continue to learn from those examples. >> since you're going to get back with me on the other, i have several other questions that i'm obviously not going to have time to address. but you indicated if a sub group fails, the resources -- the response ought to be targeted at that subgroup, not school wide. if you could follow through on that -- follow up on that. and also you mentioned the importance of higher education. could you talk about -- could you tell me what your strategy for access to higher education is and college completion, particularly as it pertains to the trio of programs, and whether there's strategy in dealing with dropouts and no

child left behind. some of the dropout factories are actually being awarded ayp which seems absurd to me. finally, there's controversy over what to do with less qualified teachers but there are two problems. to my knowledge there's no accurate measure of what an effective teacher is, and you have the counterproductive school collaboration where teachers might not want to collaborate and take on problem children because it might affect -- adversely affect them. can you talk about how you're going to identify who a qualify, effective teacher is? >> the gentleman's time is expired. you have to talk about that on the record and we would appreciate if you would do to. you're recognized for three minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, in the interest of full disclosure, i had the privilege of hearing you speak in colorado several years ago, and despite some differences left that seminar finding you to

be incredibly candid, challenging, willing to offend if necessary, and i want to thank you along with my colleagues for being here today. i want to ask you about one thing. because you mentioned reform, and listening to your testimony it strikes me that if a program is working or if it even appears to be working, you would be willing to continue it. so i have to come back to the opportunity scholarship program. 91% graduation rate. the reading scores are higher. the math scores may not be higher, but educational attainment is being reached even if -- assuming arguendo educational results are not. the parents like it. the demand outpaces the supply 4 to 1. so why not continue it? >> again, more than fair question. i stated earlier we fought very hard to keep children in the program, to be able to stay in those schools and we were able to do that.

i would disagree a little bit with you on the results. i think the results were pretty mixed actually but at the end of the day what i see our responsibility here is to create a great system of public schools. where the private sector, where the philanthropic community, where individuals wants to step up to provide scholarships to a relatively small number of students, that's fantastic, but we have to be more ambitious. we have to fix the d.c. public schools that made remarkable progress, great local leadership. we'll continue to invest in that transportation. my goal is not to save a handful of students and leave the other 500 to drown. my goal is to save every single child and that's what i think our proper role should be. >> if i told you we could craft legislation that funded all three sectors of the d.c. school system, public, private, and charter, fund all three of them, would you then support the opportunity scholarship program if there was no harm being done at all to the public school system and no harm being done to the d.c. charter school system,

would you then support it? >> i don't think any harm is being done. again, our focus has to be to great a create set of public schools. they're expanding charter schools very significantly here. we want to create access to great public schools every child. that's where our focus has to be. i'm a big fan of choice, a big fan of competition, but it has to be access across the board, not for a tiny percentage of students. >> i will do something uncharacteristic and yield back. >> mr. holt, you're recognized for the final three-minute question of the day. i'm almost going to keep my promise, mr. secretary. >> thank you, mr. secretary. thank you for your endurance and all of your good work. let me just state two questions and three comments, ask you to get to them as time allows or get back to me or the committee with your answers. first of all, what do you imagine doing with $90 million and why is it important?

secondly, in your legislative proposal, you propose ending the year-round or summer pell grant programs. why are you picking on that? is it they are already determined -- they're new -- relatively new. are they already determined not to be as successful? why did you choose to cut there? my three comments or concerns, i remain concerned that the math and science partnerships are combined under teacher effectiveness and it puts science in competition with gender equality and foreign languages and other such things, and i question the wisdom of that. also, you're celebrated for your competitive grants and, indeed, you have shown how the competitive instinct gets people

to work hard, but if the best practice is not replicated and extended, it turns out to be very inequitable, and i guess i'd like to know what measures you are applying to see that in -- again, this is new, too. you've only been at it for a couple years, but what measures are you applying to see that the competitive grant actually results in, well, lifting all boats? and i had a third concern, but maybe i will let it go -- oh, yes. i'll let it go at that. thank you, mr. secretary. >> so what i have said repeatedly is i think the education sector has lacked the transformational change that other sectors have had. i think technology can be an amazing -- can do an amazing job

of accelerating learning. i think we have to be much more thoughtful there. we need to invest more in r & d and this is a chance for us to invest in a set of players that could potentially transform the learning for young people. and i think a part of our job is not just to deal with the day-to-day issues but to look over the horizon. if we can see those kind of transformational changes in the education sector in part due to our investment, that would be a hugely important piece of work that we could do for the country. on summer pell, we discussed it a couple times. again, in an ideal world, in flusher times this is not a choice i had have begun to thought about. in tough budget times you have to make tough budget choices. the summer pell was set up with a estimate of a couple million a year and it ended up being a coup couple billion dollars.

if a perfect world we would continue that. our choice was to try to maintain the commitment to -- for the $5,500 pell for everybody. >> thank you. the gentleman's time is expired. mr. miller, you're recognized for any closing remarks. >> i won't take any more of the secretary's time. thank you, mr. secretary. we'll all have follow-up conversations. >> i thank the gentleman. mr. secretary, i thank you. i do have one note that i'd like to bring up. the last time we had a hearing we asked for some responses for the record. we, frankly had the hearing in march and got the answers in december. we've had several requests today. i hope you will look at getting those responses in a timely way as possible. i apologize to you. i'm seven minutes over. thank you very, very much for your attendance, for your testimony, for your responses. there being no further business. e

live here on c-span2. introduced on friday cuts $52 billion from the discretionary spending request submitted by the president for fy 2011. if this amendment were agreed to, as written, it would mean that we would appropriate $51 billion less than the president felt was necessary for the government to carry out its duties. mr. president, i do not agree with every item in this

president or any president request on this budget, but i also know that the president's budget request did not contain $51 billion in frivolous or wasteful spending. the cuts are necessary to reach the $51 billion level require difficult choices. this amendment makes real cuts to real programs. tens of thousands of americans will feel the direct impact of the proposed cuts. but the cuts included in this amendment are based on hearings, testimony, and a thorough analysis of the current needs of every agency and department that the committee funds. by contrast, the republicans in the house have thrown together a proposal based not on budgets, not on hearings, not on the

demonstrated needs of agencies and departments but, rather, based on the campaign promise to reduce spending by $100 billion. h.r. 1 shows clearly what happens when you write a bill based not on analysis but on campaign speeches. therefore, today the senate finds itself responding to draconian cuts that would lead to furloughs, disrupted delivery of government agencies and services, and harm america's children, our students, our working class, and our seniors. an estimated 700,000 jobs would be lost. all of this pain delivered in the name of deficit reduction and the growing economy. yet, mr. president, the facts are clear.

this is the wrong direction for our nation. mr. president, we face our current fiscal situation primarily because of falling revenues brought about by unpaid tax cuts especially for the wealthiest americans and because of ever-rising entitlement costs. every nonpartisan report on finding a solution to our current fiscal crisis stresses the need for comprehensive solution, a solution that includes cuts in discretionary spending, both defense and non-defense, as we will as cuts in entitlement spending and, yes, the need for additional revenues. just yesterday "the new york times" published a story about the efforts of the junior senator from virginia and the senior senator from georgia who

honestly examine what it will take to solve our fiscal challenges. according to that story, even if congress cut discretionary spending to zero, the senior senator from georgia was quoted as saying, "we still could not solve the problem." mr. president, i could not agree more. the solution to deficit reduction will not come from huge cuts to a small portion of the federal government, but that is what the house is proposing. what h.r. 1 will do instead is jeopardize the economic recovery we are beginning to see. mr. president, this democratic alternative attempts to make the best of a very bad situation. the topline numbers tell a story. in this amendment we are $23

billion below the president's request for nonsecurity spendi spending, and we are $28 billion below his original request for spending related to our nation's security. for the department of defense alone we have reduced spending by $19.4 billion, including a reduction of $2.1 billion for military construction and $17.3 billion for it the rest of the defense department. at this level, the bill is nearly $3 billion below the amounts proposed by the house for these activities. the recommended amounts will cover our defense requirements in this constrained fiscal environment. however, my colleagues should all understand that with our troops still serving in iraq and afghanistan, this is not the

time to be looking to defense for additional reductions. mr. president, i fear that not all members understand the depth of the cuts that were made to get $351 billion under the request -- to get $51 billion under the request. it should be advised, for example, that the senate amendment cuts $355 million for state and local law enforcement grants. this will remain -- result in some 1,400 fewer local and tribal law enforcement and criminal justice jobs. in addition, the amendment cuts $526 million from f.b.i. salaries and expenses. these cuts will halt new national security enhancements intended to improve our intelligence and counterterrorism capabilities, to protect u.s. information and

technology networks from cyber attacks, and to assist in litigation of intelligence and terrorism cases. this amendment cuts science funding by $573 million at the national science foundation and by $165 million at the national institute of standards and technology and, as a result, mr. president, the nation will lose opportunities for promising research in emerging fields like cybersecurity and nanotechnology. instead of taking a lead, as we have always done, we will slow down, allowing the rest of the world to catch up. when it comes to the critical area of education, the senate amendment eliminates 17 individual education programs,

totaling $370 million. it cuts all federal funding specifically targeted to education technology, gifted and talented instruction, a and family literacy. and, mr. president, the list goes on and on, but as significant as these cuts are, they stand in strong contrast to the house republican bill, which includes such severe measures that the bill would undermine our security, endanger our economy, while costing hundreds of thousands of american jobs. h.r. 1 would cut transit security grants by 66%. despite the fact that there have been over 1,300 attacks killing or injuring over 1-r8,000 people worldwide on trains and subways

over the last seven years, the senate bill would a maintain the fiscal year 2010-enacted level of $300 million. the house republican c.r. cuts discretionary funding for community health centers by $1 billion compared to the fy 2010-enacted level. this cut would prevent any new clinic from opening. it would eliminate funding for 127 clinics currently operating in 38 states and reduce current services at another 1,096 centers across the country. more than 2.8 million people will likely lose access to their current primary care provider, and over 5,000 health center staff would lose their jobs.

the senate bill restores the $1 billion cut, providing both the vital services being provided today and the planned expansion of centers estimated to treat over 7.5 million new patients this year. the house c.r. would eliminate all funding for the transportation investment generating economic recovery target grant program. target grants are highly competitive and fund thrption projects that make a significant contribution to the nation, a region, or metropolitan area. the house proposal would take funding away from 75 projects in 40 states across the country. based on the information from the transportation department, cutting a total of $1.2 billion

from the target program will put 33,360 jobs at risk. h.r. 1 cuts funding for the social security administration administrative expenses by $125 million below the 2010 level. this would cause the s.s.a. to freeze hiring are across the agency and possibly furlough employees at a time when the number of americans filing for disability and retirement benefits is at record levels. the senate bill, by contrast, provides $600 million more than the house republican proposal. compared to the house c.r., it will allow s.s.a. to process

about 300,000 more initial disability claims and 150,000 more disability hearings and prevent delays in new beneficiaries receiving their retirement benefits. the house bill slashes title 1 education funding by nearly $700 million, meaning 2,004 schools serving disadvantaged students would lose funding and approximately 10,000 teachers and aides would lose their jobs. at a time when schools across the nation are already struggling with budget cuts, the title 1 grants program serves as a foundation of federal assistance to elementary and secondary schools across the country, providing financial assistance to more than 90% of our nation's school districts.

finally, with regard to our nation's security interests, the devastating funding cuts in h.r. 1 undermine our ability to stablize afghanistan, pakistan, and iraq and to support general petraeus's strategy. h.r. 1 provides $5.71 billion for economic support fund, a 27% cut from the fy 2011 request. as both secretary gates and secretary clinton have made clear in testimony before congress, cuts of this magnitude will seriously impede efforts to stablize afghanistan and to transition responsibility for u.s. operations in iraq from military to civilian.

mr. president, there are many more examples of damage that would come from, should h.r. 1 be enacted into law, which is why the president has promised a veto and why i know my democratic colleagues will reject it when it comes up to a vote. the senate amendment that i offer takes a responsible approach to funding the government for the remainder of the fiscal year, making difficult decisions but also ensuring minimal disruptions for the economic recovery. mr. president, we are now almost halfway through fy 2011, and if we are to have any chance of avoiding another series of continuing resolutions for fy 2012, we simply must finish our work on the third tier and move

past this issue. therefore, mr. president, i strongly encourage my colleagues to support my amendment as a prudent alternative to the house measure. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from nevada. mr. ensign: mr. president, i start by asking unanimous consent that speakers on the republican side be limited to ten minutes each with senator coburn controlling up to 25 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. ensign: mr. president, i've come to speak on the two proposals, the democrat proposal and the republican proposal from the house, known as h.r. 1. i'm going to reluctantly support h.r. 1. it reduces government spending by about $61 billion below last year's levels. the reason i'm reluctantly supporting it is because i don't think it goes far enough. we've heard the other side rail

that the cuts are too large, but let me just -- a few quotes here. this is from admiral mike mullen, who is the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. just going to read the yellow portion here. he said that, "i believe that our debt is the greatest threat to our national security." well, we know that our national debt is over $14 trillion now thi.this year we're spending in excess of what we take in over $1 -- $almost $1.6 trillion. and all we're talking about in that house bill that got sent over here is reducing that amount by $61 billion, a very paltry amount. a few other quotes that i want to talk about here. this is from treasury secretary tim geithner. he said, february 17, "it is an excessively high interest

burden," talking about our debt. he said, "it's unsustainable. with the president's plan, even if congress were to enact it and even if congress were to hold to it and reduce those deficits as a percentage of g.d.p. over the next five years" -- and this is the important part -- "we would still be left with a very large interest burden and unsustainable obligations over time." that's the secretary -- secretary of treasury. he also said that "our deficit are too high. they are unsustainable." i think everybody agrees. and he said, "if left unaaddressed, these deficits will hurt economic growth and make us weaker as a nation." well, the bills that we have before us, one bill starts to address it. the other bill virtually ignores the deficit. the next quote -- this is from

the president himself, "what my budget does is to put forward some tough choices, some significant spending cuts so that by the middle of this decade, our annual spending will match our annual revenues." he said, "we will not be adding more to the national debt." it is absolutely incredible that the president could make such a comment by looking at his budget. his budget takes us from $14 trillion in debt to $27 tril onin debt over the next decade -- $27 trillion in debt over the next decade. almost doubles the national debt. and he says we're going to be living within our means? here's a graph of that. in 2010, we are about $13.5 trillion. you see over the decade, we go up further, further, further. down here, 2021, $26.3 trillion. this is virtually a doubling of

our national debt. that's why when timothy geithner said it's unsustainable, our secretary of the treasury, appointed by president obama, he says it's unsustainable. we all agree it's unsustainable, so when are we going to get spending under control? we literally, we have to quit spending money that we do not have because we're bankrupting the very future of america. i want to quote just a few of the senators from the other side of the aisle. senator joe manchin said, "the most powerful person in these negotiations, our president, has failed to lead on this debate or offer a serious proposal for spending cuts." he also said, the democratic bill, the other alternative, "utterly ignores our fiscal reality, that our nation is badly in debt and spending at un -- absolutely unsustainable and

out-of-control levels. we must turn our financial ship around, but the senate proposal continues to sail forward as if there's no storm on the horizo horizon." that's a quote from one of our democratic colleagues here from west virginia. the bill that has been proposed by the democrat majority fails to understand that there is a fiscal crisis in this country and it is a problem of spending. senator claire mccaskill of missouri said, another democrat, "i feel strongly that the cuts are not large enough. talking about this bill. another said, "we need so send some sort of a shock wave across the federal government that this time we really mean it." he was talking about spending cuts. he was talking about getting serious about deficit reduction. well, mr. president the house bill doesn't do enough but at

least it's headed more in the right direction about getting spending under control. while i might not agree with every one of the spending cuts in it, the direction it is going is the right direction. what we need to do as a congre congress. the bill that the majority has put before us is really showing a lack of understanding of how serious this deficit and this debt -- how serious of an issue that this is for our country. now, a few other things that i want to talk about. i want to put all of this deficit reduction that this is being called into some sort of contract -- of context. this year the congressional budget office says that we're going to spend $1.5 trillion more than what we take in. that's what the deficit is this

year. according to the president, it's over $1.6 trillion. those are their estimates. the bottom line is, we are spending about 40 cents more per dollar than what we take in. now, these spending proposals that we have before us, this is how much the deficit is. the house bill will reduce that deficit by this tiny slice of the pie. the democrat majority's bill will reduce it by this little, tiny slice of the pie right here. so the house bill is a small slice but at least it's a larger slice than what the democrat majority has put out. the bottom line is, this is patent system they and i can this will do -- this is pathetic and this will do nothing to put us on a sustainable fiscal path where we can start living within our means and quit spending mean we do not have. the house bill itself is

actually just a 4% reduction in the amount of money that we're borrowing. just a 4% reduction. if you think about it, this ye year, since we're borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar that we spend, to put that in terms that maybe a family would understand, it would be like a family making $60,000 a year and yet it's going to spend $100,0 $100,000. well, any family in america would understand that that's unsustainable. you couldn't continue along that path. and if that same family was to decrease their spending habits by the same amount that the democrats have proposed out of that $100,000, they would reduce their spending habits by $168. that's all. that's how pathetic this spending reduction is by the

other side. we have to get serious. recently, senator coburn requested a general accountability office report that came back and said they identified over $100 billion in duplicative and wasteful spending programs. $100 billion per year in wasteful and duplicative spending programs. this g.a.o. report underscores the great negligence of the federal government when it comes to managing hard-earned taxpayer dollars. let me just give you a couple of facts from that report. it says that the government spends $18 billion on 47 different job-training programs and yet the president even requested another $400 million for a new program that will replicate proven stra strategieo develop even more job-training programs. do you know how many of these job-training programs are measured for effectiveness out of the 47?

zero are measured for effectiveness. zero. and yet we're going to create more instead of eliminating a lot of the programs and doing our proper oversight that this congress should be doing. there are 80 programs providing transportation to disadvantaged persons in eight different departments. the g.a.o. found that $2 billion in costs for just 29 of these programs but the extent of fragmentation in this area was unable to identify total cost for the other 51 programs. in other words, they couldn't even identify what the total costs were for these other programs, that's how messed up it is. the u.s. government also spends about $63 billion on 18 different domestic food and nutrition programs and about $3 billion on 20 homelessness programs. and the report notes -- and i'm quoting -- "this can create unnecessary work for both

providers and applicants and may result in the use of more administrative resources than needed." let me translate that. that means we have too much bureaucracy and too much wasteful spending so the money doesn't actually get to the people it's intended to help. it gets spent in the bureaucracy. we also have another almost $60 billion spent on over 100 duplicated and fragmented surface transportation programs. a hundred of them. and so while i'm troubled that the $61 billion from the house just isn't enough to tackle the problem, i am astounded by what the other side of the aisle has done. it also continues many of the wasteful programs that we talk about: the corporation for public broadcasting has come under fire, obviously, npr, this morning their c.e.o. resigned. they've wean the controversies there. --

we've seen the controversies there. but this bill also spends $20 billion to help unions organize overseas, not even in america, our unions -- helping unions organize overseas. is that what we want to be doing with american taxpayer dollars? well, today's vote are a choice between modest progress and making the problem -- the presiding officer: excuse me, the senator has used ten minutes. mr. ensign: i would ask for an additional one minute. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. ensign: the house bill needs to be the floor for what we accomplish out of this process. and as i said, the house bill isn't nearly enough and we can't allow this process to capture a modest improvement in the name of compromise by watering it down to a complete abdication of leadership. the stakes are really just too high. so today i will be reluctantly supporting h.r. 1, the house bill, which cuts $61 billion

from last year's spending. it's a step in the right direction, a modest step. the other side has put forward a proposal that should be rejected out of hand because it is completely inadequate. it keeps us spending money we do not have. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. schumer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent to speak for up to two minutes and for senator leahy to be recognized following my remarks for ten minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: mr. president, and i wouldn't mind the chart from my friend from nevada staying up, because it makes my point that i'll make in a minute. in a few hours, the senate will hold an up-or-down vote on h.r. 1, the house republican scorched-earth spending proposal that counts among its casualties such critical priorities as border security, cancer research and food safety inspectors. the house g.o.p. proposal is a troatrojan horse and we will noe

fooled by it. it speaks in the name of deficit reduction but the dirty little secret about the republican spending plan is that once the dust has settled, it would only decrease the deficit by $5 billion in fiscal year 2011. when you look at the c.b.o. score of the continuing resolution we're operating under and compare that to the house spending bill, the difference by c.b.o. and budget outlays only amounts to $5 billion in fiscal year 2011. so we're talking about a difference of $1.36 tri trillion budget outlays under the current c.r. versus $1.355 trillion in outlays under the republican proposal, much like my colleague from nevada's chart has shown. in other words, all of the cuts the republicans are currently cy proposing will shave a grant total of .3% from the deficit.

some might say, well, it's a start, but in relation to the damage these cuts will do, it's a meaningless start. the cuts to domestic discretionary will do nothing to create jobs or spur short-term economic growth. in fact, the reverse is true. as numerous independent economists point out, we will see a reduction in economic growth almost immediately if h.r. 1 is enacted, and these cuts will harm our ability to prepare for the future because they gut the very priorities we need to be investing in to help our economy grow -- education -- the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent i be given two additional minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: energy technology, and infrastructure. if all these cuts won't improve the economy in the near term and won't cut the deficit, then exactly what will they do? they'll satisfy a very small but vocal segment of the republican party. that's all.

so, mr. president, it's time for a reset. this morning, i called for a reset of this budget debate. i think it's important that after today's votes, both sides in the debate take a deep, collective breath. we should all take stock of how the discussion up to now has become distorted and seek to reset the terms of the debate. it may not happen tomorrow, but in the coming weeks as negotiations led by the white house reconvene, we should approach the talks with fresh eyes and a new mindset. rather than continuing the fixation on domestic discretionary cuts, which at the same time do huge damage and cut the deficit very little just because of the way they are spent, the next offer and counteroffer should include mandatory cuts and revenue raisers like oil royalties into the mix. we will only put a dent in the deficit through shared sacrifice. focusing simply on domestic

discretionary and even leaving out the military will not achieve our goal of deficit reduction, including mandatory cuts and revenue raisers like oil royalties will. the bottom line is this: the blame for the current breakdown in budget negotiations rests with our failure to think big. a bipartisan compromise simply will not be found in discretionary spending cuts alone. we must broaden the playing field. the solution will only come from putting other kinds of cuts as well as revenue enhancements on the table. doing this will also set the table for the larger budget discussions still to come. i see my colleague from vermont is here, so i'm ready to yield the floor to him. mr. leahy: i -- i appreciate that, but i think what they're going to do is try to go back and forth. mr. schumer: well, i yield the floor in any case. mr. leahy: senator sessions will go, but i appreciate the courtesy of the senator from new york.

i would yield with the -- and with the consent that i then be recognized at the end of the senator from alabama's speech. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: mr. president, i -- i thank the distinguished chairman of the judiciary committee and congratulate him on a very successful patent bill that passed with an overwhelming vote. i was pleased to work with him on that as a partner for two years when i was ranking member of that committee, and i think it's a good day. mr. president, we'll soon be moving toward a vote on the continuing resolution. there are apparently going to be two options given to us, and the question i would pose to our colleagues and to the american people is do we have to do something or can we do nothing? is nothing an option? because that's what the democratic proposal is, nothing,

zero, nada. so we had in the budget committee, of which i am the ranking member now, the testimony yesterday of allen simpson ander skin -- and erskine bowles, president clinton's chief of staff and a well-known business and democratic leader. this is what they told us yesterday in their written statement, both of them put this in to us. "we believe that if we do not take decisive action, our nation faces the most predictable economic crisis in history." close quote. they have spent months wrestling with these numbers. they reached a majority of the members voted for the reforms they proposed, and they gave a lot of time and effort to it.

i didn't think they went far enough in some of the areas, but i would say they made a real significant attempt to deal with the crisis we face. and in their testimony yesterday, they went even further. why do we mean a crisis? we had a crisis in 2007 that put us in the deepest recession we've had in decades. greece has had a crisis. that's the kind of thing they're talking about. 40% of every dollar we spend is borrowed, and senator conrad, our chairman, our distinguished democratic leader asked them what happens in your judgment to the united states if we fail to get an agreement in the range of what the commission concluded is necessary? the commission proposes a a $4 trillion reduction in our deficit spending over the next ten years. it should be more.

that's what they propose. president obama's budget says it reduce it is by $1 trillion, but when the cob scores it, they're going to find it's filled with gimmicks and there will not be any reduction, i predict, in the deficit in the obama budget, which is really, really disappointing. it's a do nothing about the debt problem budget. mr. bowles, so what's going to happen? mr. bowles -- quote -- "this problem is going to happen. it is a problem. we're going to have to face up in maybe two years, maybe a little less, maybe a little more ." close quote. and mr. simpson, he -- he commented." i think it will come before two years." we're talking about a crisis. "i'm just saying at some point within a year, i think at the

end of a year. if the people who hold our debt just thought you're playing with fluff, 5%, 6% of this hole, they're going to say i want some money for my paper. if there's anything money guys love, it's money, and money guys when they start losing money panic, and let me tell you they will. it won't matter what the government does. they'll say i want my money. i've got a better place for it. just say from me it won't be a year before we have a crisis." well, this is a serious matter. it's not a do-nothing circumstance. so we have a simple choice to make today. do we take a step, even a small step that sends a signal to the world that we intend to take action to prevent the crisis, not act after a disaster hits?

or we can do nothing, as the democratic proposal is. the republican proposal will immediately lower spending by by $61 billion for the rest of the year. that's a reduction of about 6% of the discretionary spending budget. most states, cities and counties in america have had bigger reductions than that. and they're still here. they haven't ceased to exist, and we're not going to cease to exist if we reduce spending 6%, but it will make a difference. that amounts to 4% of the total debt, and as i will show in a moment, mr. president, it means a lot more than that. the democratic proposal proposes $6 billion, but it's really clearly only a $4 billion reduction. that's less than .5% reducks in the discretionary spending budget. less than .5%.

now, this $61 billion is not going to break us. g.a.o. recently found that the government spends $18 billion on 47 different job training programs, 47 different job training programs. we don't have any ability to save money and do more with less in this country? no business would run the way we run the united states government, and this is just one of the typical kind of duplication and waste that goes on in our government. we are living in a fantasy world if we think we can't find find $61 billion to reduce out of more than $1 trillion in a discretionary budget. under president obama, the discretionary spending increased 24% in the last two years. it's already gone up 24%. what do you mean we can't take a

6% reduction? we're facing a crisis, a debt crisis. families across the country are trimming their budgets. they're doing so every day. washington just keeps on growing, and spending and growing. we had the education secretary in to the budget committee last week. they proposed an 11% increase in education spending this year, 11%. energy was in, 9.5% increase this next year for energy, they say. and hold your hat, the secretary of transportation was in and proposes a 62% transportation budget increase. now, this is where we were over over $3 trillion, and we jump now to $3.7 trillion. well, how much money do we -- so

that's a 24% increase. i'm not making these numbers up. well, what about the deficit numbers? this year, we spend spend $3.7 trillion, maybe maybe $3.8 trillion. want to know how much our revenue is this year? $2.2 trillion. i know it's unbelievable. the american people probably just cannot imagine that we are spending $3.8 trillion and taking in $2.2 trillion, but it is true. 40 cents of every dollar that we spend is borrowed. this is why mr. bowles and mr. simpson and every economist that's ever testified has said we're on an unsustainable path, a path that cannot be continued.

we need to take action now. this isn't enough, but it's a step. i think it sends a message to the world financial markets, the bond vigilantes that the united states is on the road to do something about the spending that we're in. our debt will soon be larger than the economy. it will exceed 100% of g.d.p. by the end of this fiscal year. amazingly surging debt load for the whole country. we -- we cannot keep spending what we don't have, borrowing what we cannot pay back. we cannot do this. our crushing -- crushes debt burden is like an anchor dragging on our economy. it slows growth. as rogoff and reinhardt's study showed, as secretary of treasury geithner acknowledged in the committee, it's already slowing

our growth, and also he added it's worse than that because it puts us at risk as mr. bowles and simpson say for some sort of debt crisis. it's unpredictable when and how it might occur. that's president obama's secretary of the treasury. the presiding officer: the member's time has expired. mr. sessions: mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent to have two additional minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: so we can't keep delaying. we can't keep promising to do something tomorrow. we have to have a vote. we'll have a vote today. we need to act today. a vote for the democratic proposal is a vote to do nothing. it's a vote to stay in denial. it's a vote that says deficits don't matter. we can just keep on, but deficits do matter. they have always mattered. they always will matter, and some say you can't reduce, say, making any savings from reducing deficit spending. let me show you this chart.

i think the first one, because because $61 billion reduction is a reduction of the base line. and when you reduce the base line, you save that amount every year, even if you have growth in the future years, and it adds up. it's kind of geometrical reduction in spending and debt that we have to have, and it's been working the other way. we have been increasing dramatically, and you know from your business accounting that 7% return on your money doubles your money in ten years. we got 24% the last two years. that's why the government is doubling and quadrupling in size. this would show, according to our budget staff and the calculator, if you reduce the base line $61 billion of discretionary spending alone, he would save $862 billion in deficit reduction over ten years, and if you were to freeze that base line in for just five

years, not only would you save save $860 billion, but but $1.65 trillion. enough money to make a real difference. in just one little act of $61 billion, the reduction of discretionary spending. i thank the president and would yield the floor. mr. leahy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president, one, i would note, i appreciate the senator from alabama's help on the patent bill which passed last night. and it is one thing that will help us increase jobs and not add anything to the deficit. i do -- you know, i have to think of the revenue that comes in. we had a what i think was a terrible mistake, when the congress voted to support going to war in iraq, and i was one of

the 22 to vote against that war, but then voted to cut taxes and borrow the money to pay for the war in iraq. we borrowed $1 trillion, paid for a war that has not made us safer, has created thousands of americans' deaths and tens of thousands of others and destroyed our ability to respond otherwise. it has accomplished one thing: iraq did pose a threat to iran, and we've removed that threat to iran, which i'm sorry to say was an added mistake. we also went into afghanistan in an attempt to catch osama bin laden. when he was surrounded, our c.i.a. and special forces were yanked out of afghanistan to go into iraq and he simply escaped

into pakistan. $1 trillion later, we're still there. again, borrowed the money for those two wars, one that went way beyond whatever it was supposed to do, the other one we shouldn't have been in the first place, but we borrowed the money, and we also cut taxes on oil companies and millionaires and everybody else. not the best way to show shared hardships for that war. it's only the brave men and women who are over there who have the hardship, not the rest of us. and this -- when -- let me talk, though, about how the senate c.r. and h.r. 1, how that funding would affect the debt -- the department of state and foreign operations. these both come under a subcommittee that i chair in appropriations. let's talk about what's in the house c.r. -- perhaps most

importantly, what's not in the house c.r. international development is nonsecurity spending, even though the integral part they both play in protecting our security around the globe. it ignores the views of secretary of state clinton, secretary of defense gates, chairman of the joint chiefs admiral mullen, former chairman general powell, general petrae petraeus, president obama, former presidents george h.w. bush and have been have been and every former national security advisor. they've all made clear that these investments do directly protect u.s. security investments. the investments the house say are not part of security interests. every one of these people i've named say it directly affects our national security interests, not only on the front lines of afghanistan, pakistan, iraq, but around the world.

president reagan, former homeland security director ridge also recognize the connection. security essential programs directly enhances the security of the united states. secretary ridge said, "the program supported by the international affairs budget are as essential to our national security as defense programs." secretary gates said, "i never miss an opportunity to call for more funding for emphasis on diplomacy and development." there are a whole lot of other examples from both republican and democratic leaders that seem to have fallen on deaf ears in the house. our republican friends in the house should know that we can't counter the influence of al qaeda and other violent extremists through military force alone. they should know that helping dunce like southern udan or building stable democratic institutions in countries like

egypt or preventing the trafficking of nuclear material and other weapons in the former soviet union or educating and providing jobs for the youth that would otherwise be fodder for terrorist recruiters in the middle east or imaght the corrosive influence of organized crime in central america or preventing the spread of deadly viruses in africa and asia, viruses that are only one airplane ride away from the united states, or supporting nato, or supporting the international atomic energy agency or u.n. peacekeeping -- these are all parts of ash national security, and the diplomats here and abroad and the funds they administer that make it possible, that make the united states part of the world community. the house press release claims it adequately funds operations and programs in afghanistan, pakistan, and iraq. that's empty rhetoric. secretary clinton has said the house c.r. will unacceptably harm u.s. interests in those

countries. that's only the beginning. the house c.r. slashes funding for refugees and other victims of disaster by 40%, at the same time that members on the other sieftdz ierl are rightly urging that we help the tens of thousands of libyans who've fled their homes. we say we should be helping these libyans -- these people who have fled their homes. we should help the egyptians who are now refugees in lib yavment i agree with them. everybody agrees with them. but, oh, by the way, we're going to cut almost in half your budget for refugees. you can't have one without the other. the house c.r. provides no funding for the global food security fund. that prevents hunger and famine in africa and asia and improves america's standing. it eliminates funding for the clean technology fund which supports exports of solar, wind, and other renewable energy

technology. but you know what it does it because we remove it, we remove a major competitor to china. they're funding -- they are funding these technologies. we have fierce competition from them. they are delighted to see us step back so these jobs are not is going to be in technology in the united states, we're not going to be exporting this, we're not going to have influence this that part of the world. china will take over. how shortsighted can this be? this is like you own a business and you got a competitor on the other side of the aisle and you say, we will, we're not going to advertise. we're not going to carry up-to-date goods. we're pea only going to be open a couple days a week. i hope that competitor doesn't drive us out of business. it drastically reduces funding to operate our embassies and consulates, which every american traveling, working or studying

overseas depends upon. every one of us as members of congress knows that if there is a problem overseas, they go to our embassies or consulates abroad. the house c.r. would sharply cut funding for global health programs. h.i.v., aids, malaria and other deadly diseases. denying services to hundreds of thousands of people and condemning women and children in other parts of the world to death. renege on our treaty obligations to the u.n., to the international financial institutions. our carpet,china, -- our competitors, china, is particularly eager to purchase. at a time when china is expanding its influence globally, the house would have us pull back and say, here, you guys take oamplet you can be the face -- you guys tak guys take t

you can be the face that these guys will see, no not the united states. even britain's conservative government is exempting, even increasing international aid because unlike our republican friends in the house, they recognize a matter of national security. you know, we might say also the impact of h.r. 11 equally devastating on our domestic programs. our foreign programs are part of our security, it's devastating there. but look at what it's doing here. the social safety net, the programs that expand and maintain our country's infrastructure, they're going to be slashed. and numerous comments from bernanke and mark zandi recognize the impact of the h.r. 1. the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs just at a time when our economy is starting to recover. i hear this daily from my fellow

vermonters. a mother came into my office a few weeks ago explaining how the head start program changed the direction of her life. not only did head start provide a reliable, safe educational environment for her children, it made it possible for her to pursue a college education, be a strong tax-paying part of our society. but h.r. 1 would deny more than 300 vermont children and families these same opportunities. for those unmoved by cuts to head start it would also devastate one of our best economic development tools: community development block grant program. i ask my full statement be made part of the prord and i'd ask to continue for 30 seconds more. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: the senate c.r. provides $1.68 billion for refugee assistance, which is equal to fiscal year 2010, and

$662 million above provided in h.r. 1. i have many, many other examples. we ought to listen to former republican presidents and democratic presidents, former republican secretary of state and crefnts ones and know the need for this. i thank the chair, and i thank my distinguished friend, the senior citizen from new mexico for his courtesy. the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. mr. bingaman: mr. president, first i'd -- i have six unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. these have been approved by the majority and the minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bingaman: mr. president, i'd ask consent to speak for up to ten minutes as if in morning

business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bingaman: mr. president, i rise today to talk about the damage that would be done if h.r. 1 were to become law and, specifically, to talk about a few areas that i have been paying particular attention to: science and technology, for one; particularly related to energy, energy policy; second, border security and law enforcement; and also education. to me, this is not a question of whether there should be cuts in our federal budget. clearly, there should be cuts. but the real issue here is whether we should be smart about where we make those cuts. to me, it's clear that h.r. 1 does not represent smart policy about where to make those cuts.

it helps a plan to mindlessly cut funding during the remaining five months of the current fiscal year in order to send some kind of message to the world that we are serious about deficit reduction. and my -- in my view, h.r. 1 sends a message, but it is not the right message. the message it says sends is that we in fact are not willing to look at serious deficit reduction at this point. the first area of cuts that i wanted to talk about that are contained in h.r. 1 that will severely impact our nation for years to come and have an effect on how many jobs we can actually create, that is the area of science and energy innovation. last december this congress passed a reauthorization of what we call the america competes afnlgcompete act.and i was privk

with my colleague from tennessee, senator alexander, on helping get that legislation enacted. its purpose was to authorize funding for the department of energy's office of science, for the national consigns foundation, and -- national consigns foundation and for the national institutes of standards and technology, for the next three years so that by fiscal year 2016 we would have completed a ten-year doubling of the funding for those agencies. i'd like to note that this effort was first started during the bush administration. it has been carried forward during this current administration. under president obama, the effort has enjoyed strong, bipartisan support and garnered endorsements from leading industry groups such as the u.s. chamber of commerce, the business round table, counsel on competitive -- council on competitiveness. these organizations recognize

that the future of our nation depends on the strong scientific back sph bone that -- backbone that we need for our workforce in order to outinnovate our competitors around the world. so it comes as a surprise to notice see large cuts being proposed by the house of representatives in their fiscal year 2011 funding bill to the very programs that all of us seemed to agree are needed to keep us competitive in the years ahead. what cuts am i talking about? let me give an example. one example is in the office of science. this is the nation's largest supporter of physical sciences and these are the very areas by which we intend to supply a new stream of scientists and engineers to companies such as intel and ford motor company and many others. the house bil